Their Last Full Measure

(A Learning Experience, Book VI)

Book One: A Learning Experience
Book Two: Hard Lessons
Book Three: The Black Sheep
Book Four: The Long Road Home
Book Five: The Long-Range War
Book Six: Their Last Full Measure

Christopher G. Nuttall

Cover By Tan Ho Sim
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Cover Blurb

Humanity has won a great victory, shattering the alien fleet that would have destroyed the Solar Union and exterminated the human race.  But the war is not yet over.  The Tokomak still have a huge fleet and an immense industrial base, large enough to crush the human race once and for all if they have time to bring it into action.  The war may still be lost.

There is only one way to win.  Admiral Hoshiko Stuart and her fleet must take the war deep into enemy territory, to the very heart of the Tokomak Empire.  But with the Tokomak gathering their forces and rallying their allies for one final battle, the outcome still hangs in the balance ...

... And whoever wins will dominate the galaxy for thousands of years to come.

A Very Brief Recap

In the very near future, a handful of military veterans in the USA were abducted by an alien starship.  Unluckily for their would-be captors - the Horde, a race of interstellar scavengers - the humans rapidly managed to break free and gain control of the starship.  Steve Stuart, a rancher who had been growing more and more disillusioned with the government, saw opportunity - the starship could serve as the base for a new civilisation, the Solar Union.  

Despite some small problems with planet-bound governments, the Solarians - as they would eventually be called - started to both recruit settlers for the new state and distribute alien-grade technology on Earth.  After defeating a series of Horde ships that attempted to recapture their starship and attack Earth, the Solar Union was firmly in place.  

This was, of course, unknown to the rest of the galaxy.  To them, Earth wasn't even a microstate.  This suited the Solarians just fine.  Humans could and did travel beyond the solar system - as traders, mercenaries or even simple explorers - but no one wanted to attract the Galactics to Earth.  The Solarians were already making improvements to GalTech that could not fail to alarm the major alien powers, particularly the Tokomak, the undisputed masters of the known galaxy.  

Fifty years after Contact, the veil of secrecy fell.  Humanity’s involvement in a series of brushfire wars at the edge of known space could no longer be hidden, nor could elements of advanced technology.  In response, the Tokomak dispatched a massive fleet to Sol with the intention of blasting Earth to cinders.  Unknown to the Tokomak, the Solar Navy had just enough advanced technology to stand off the alien fleet and smash it.  The follow-up attacks shattered the Tokomak grip on the nearby sectors, freeing hundreds of planets from their influence.  Humanity had suddenly become a major regional power.  A number of naval bases were rapidly established, both to extend human influence and protect human trade.

This had unfortunate effects on Earth.  The expansion of the Solar Union - and its willingness to insist that anyone who wanted to emigrate, could - accidentally accelerated the social decline pervading civilisation.  Europe, America and many other countries fell into civil war, something that caused considerable concern in orbit.  One faction within the Solar Union wanted to intervene, others - feeling no loyalty to Earth - believed it was better to let Earthers handle their own affairs.  

Captain-Commodore Hoshiko Sashimi Stuart - the granddaughter of Steve Stuart - accidentally stepped into a political minefield when she insisted that Earth should be left alone.  Her family’s political enemies were quick to use it against them.  Accordingly, she was placed in command of a cruiser squadron and dispatched to the Martina Sector, where she would be well out of the public eye.  However, she quickly discovered that the Druavroks - a powerful alien race - were bent on a campaign of genocide against their neighbours, including a number of human settlers.  Allying herself with other threatened races, Hoshiko led a campaign that broke the Druavroks and laid the groundwork for a human-led federation - a Grand Alliance.

Unfortunately for humanity - and everyone else - the Tokomak had other ideas.  Neola, the Tokomak who had commanded the fleet that died at Earth, managed to take control of the Tokomak Empire and prepare her people for a far more serious war.  Her first step, after ensuring that the immense fleets were brought back online, was to attempt to lure a human starship - Odyssey - into a trap.  Although humanity fell for what was presented, to them, as an olive branch from one of the oldest known races, the crew of Odyssey were able to escape and find their way back to the nearest safe port.  In their wake, however, an ultimatum was sent.  Humanity could surrender, or be mercilessly hunted down and exterminated.

This could not be borne.  

Realising that the Tokomak would have to take their ships through a gravity point bottleneck at Apsidal, the Solar Union sent a massive fleet under Admiral Stuart to occupy the system and stand off the enemy forces.  Unfortunately, Empress Neola followed the same line of reasoning and deployed her own fleet to pin the human ships against the gravity point.  She was not, however, able to plan for the combination of advanced technology and sheer nerve, which allowed her human opponents to counter her and do immense damage to her fleet.  Cutting her losses, Neola fled home ... only to discover that she had been unseated, that half the known galaxy was on the verge of outright rebellion and, for the first time in a hundred thousand years, the Tokomak faced a devastating defeat…

Prologue

It would have made Empress Neola laugh, if it wasn’t so ... ironic.

She had rebelled, the first junior officer - by the standards of her people - to rebel in thousands of years.  She had led an almost effortless coup against the old ones, the ancients too doddering and old to realise that someone could overthrow them ... only to discover, after the twin disasters of Apsidal and N-Gann, that someone had overthrown her in turn.  They hadn’t stripped her of power, they hadn’t banished her to a retirement world nicely out of the way, but they had limited her power.  The omnipotence she’d claimed was gone.

Although I was never quite omnipotent, she reflected, sourly.  Sure, she’d been the absolute ruler of the Tokomak Empire, but ... there had been limits.  The humans and their pathetic Galactic Alliance hadn’t surrendered, when faced with the prospect of clashing with the greatest military machine in the known galaxy.  The universe didn’t bend to my will.

She studied the handful of faces around the table, knowing her position was weaker than before.  Once, she could have snapped her long fingers and everyone would have leapt to obey.  Now ... it was a popularity contest, where the soldiers and spacers decided for themselves who they’d follow, who they’d obey.  Neola shuddered.  She understood the importance of ensuring competence at the top - it was why she’d launched her coup - but soldiers and spacers shouldn’t decide for themselves which orders they’d follow.  At best, there would be long delays as they tried to argue out the pros and cons of each set of orders: at worst, there would be absolute anarchy.  It was no way to run a government, let alone a war.  And she knew they simply didn’t have time to iron out the kinks before the humans set Tokomak Prime itself on fire.

And they know I lost the last campaign, she thought.  They’re not inclined to listen to me.

A human would have gritted her teeth.  Neola was too practiced to reveal her emotions that openly, but anger and despair gnawed at her gut.  It wasn’t a complete disaster - she’d argued, time and time again - but hardly anyone believed her.  Cold logic was no substitute for the shock of hundreds of thousands of lives, important lives, being expended on a gravity point assault.  No one in the room cared one whit for the lesser races who served the Tokomak as sepoys, expendable cannon fodder, but the Tokomak spacers themselves?  They were important.  The Tokomak hadn’t suffered such losses in living memory.  And, given there were Tokomak who were literally thousands of years old, that was a very long time indeed.

“We expect you to behave yourself, Empress,” Coordinator Hakav said.  “And to listen to our advice.”

You could just have taken power for yourself, Neola thought, coldly.  It spoke of either rectitude or moral cowardice.  She didn’t care which.  Instead, you content yourself with giving advice.

She wanted to laugh.  Or cry.  The youngsters often affected the manner of the old ... but they didn’t need to, not any longer.  They were calling the shots.  Now.  And yet, they didn’t have the courage to overthrow her completely.  They had to know she was dangerous.  Neola had overthrown ancients who’d held their posts for longer than most of them had been alive, sheer longevity giving them a legitimacy the youngsters lacked.  She’d kill them all if she got a chance and they had to know it.  But they’d merely hampered her.  That was a mistake.

Unless they don’t want to risk another round of infighting, she reminded herself.  We could lose the war with the humans while scrabbling amongst ourselves.

She nodded, curtly, and directed their attention to the holographic display.  “There is no point in lying to ourselves,” she said.  Let them think of her as fettered, for the moment.  She’d regain what she’d lost in time.  “We are not our servants, who need reassurance.  We can accept that the situation is grim.  The humans have scored a major victory.”

“We have never lost a fleet base before,” Admiral Kyan said.

“No.”  Neola conceded the point without rancour.  “But we have many - many - fleet bases.”

She spoke calmly, hiding her irritation as much as she could.  “The humans have successfully prevented us from launching a major invasion of their sector.  Right now, our fleets would have to proceed through FTL, a journey that would take decades.  The human outposts blocking the gravity point chains have to be dislodged before we could mount an invasion in a reasonable space of time.  We will be required to launch a series of gravity point assaults before we could even think about bringing our muscle to bear on Earth.

“However, we have other problems.  The loss of a major fleet base” - she nodded to the admiral - “has ... unsettled … our allies.  Many of them are rethinking their stance in the light of new developments.  Others are looking back to the days of their independence and wondering what, if anything, they can do while we’re distracted.  And while we are still strong enough to take out our allies if there is no other choice, they could produce a distraction at the worst possible time.  Right now, there is a human fleet within striking distance of the inner worlds.  It may only be a matter of time before that fleet starts an advance to the core.”

She allowed her words to hang in the air.  “To Tokomak Prime itself.”

There was a long, chilling pause.  She smiled inwardly, despite the seriousness of the situation.  They’d never really considered just how easily a strength could become a weakness, if the balance of power shifted even slightly.  The Tokomak had banned their servants from fortifying the gravity points, both to ensure free navigation and to make it difficult for anyone to stop their fleets from teaching any rebellious systems a lesson.  Now, with a major enemy fleet pressing against the inner worlds themselves, the gravity points were terrifyingly undefended.  Neola had started a fortification program, hastily repurposing planetary defence platforms and constructing floating fortresses from scratch, but she was uncomfortably aware the program would take time.  Time she didn’t have.  The humans moved so quickly that they’d often managed to surprise even her.

And they’ve also managed to improve upon the technology they stole, she mused, sourly.  The Tokomak had thought they’d taken technology as far as it could go.  The humans had proved them wrong.  In hindsight, it had been a convenient lie ... a lie that had been believed, eventually even by the people who’d propagated it in the first place.  Neola knew she’d pulled off some tactical innovations - she’d caught the humans by surprise, once or twice - but her people were ill-prepared to engage in a technological arms race.  Sooner or later, they’ll come up with something that renders our giant reserve fleet nothing more than scrap metal.

She shuddered again.  The Tokomak had built literally millions of warships over thousands of years.  They’d built so many ships they couldn’t hope to man them, even if they gave every last one of their race a uniform and assigned him to a ship.  The fleet had been held in reserve, the largest hammer in the known galaxy.  The cost of keeping it even marginally operable had been staggering, even to them.  But now, the fleet was only of limited value.  The programs to bring the ships out of mothballs, crew them and deploy them to the front might not be completed in time to keep the humans from developing a whole new weapons system.  And then the reserve fleet might become worse than useless.

“Time is not on our side,” she said, calmly.  She altered the display.  “This is what I intend to do.”

She outlined her plan, grimly aware that it was really nothing more than a more urgent version of her previous plan.  She’d assumed she could secure Apsidal and open the way to Earth without much ado, forcing the humans to stand in defence of their homeworld rather than raiding the inner worlds themselves.  She’d assumed ... but those assumptions had died in fire, along with hundreds of thousands of Tokomak spacers.  She hadn’t bothered to calculate how many of their subjects had died - no one had cared enough to ask - but she knew their deaths were in the millions.  And yet, she needed to demand much more from their client races.  They’d all have to stand in defence of civilisation itself.

And yet, they’re starting to wonder if we can be beaten, Neola thought.  And that makes them unreliable.

She cursed the gerontocrats under her breath, savagely.  The humans had an expression - Old Farts - that fitted them perfectly.  They’d been so keen to make it clear that the Tokomak had never suffered even the slightest loss - not in recorded history, anyway - that losing even a single ship was a major disaster.  And she’d lost thousands of ships.  It was only a black eye - she had hundreds of thousands of ships coming online - but it looked bad.  The public perception was that the Tokomak were losing.  And the mere fact they had to consider public perception was itself a sign that things were going wrong ...

“This could be the end,” she warned.  “The humans are at our gates.  But we do have a preponderance of firepower and mobile units.  If we can find the time to bring the rest of the fleet online - if - we can end this threat once and for all.”

“If,” Coordinator Hakav repeated.

“If,” Neola agreed.  “The galaxy has changed beyond measure in the last few years.  We can no longer allow ourselves the delusion that we are unbeatable.  We cannot afford to keep believing our own lies.  We must adapt when change sweeps over us.  Or die.”

She let out a long breath.  She was young, although by human standards she would be on the verge of death.  And yet, even she had trouble grasping what might lie ahead.  She’d been so used to the limits of everything from technology to politics, and to the concept of those limits being inflexible, that she had trouble imagining what might happen if they changed.  The Tokomak saw themselves as the undisputed and unchallengeable masters of the known universe.  It rarely occurred to them - it had rarely occurred to them - that their dominance was not a natural law.  The universe didn’t guarantee them anything.

But it doesn’t guarantee the humans anything either, she reminded herself, firmly.  They’re strong, but they’re not unbeatable.  We can still reclaim the galaxy for ourselves.

Sure, her thoughts answered, as the discussion continued to rage.  And what sort of galaxy will we pass down to our children?

Chapter One

Hameeda’s eyes snapped open.

For a moment, wrapped in the darkness, she was unsure of where she was or what she was doing.  She’d been dreaming ... she wasn’t sure what she’d been dreaming, but it had troubled her on a level she couldn’t express.  There’d been shadows in her dreams ... she shook her head as the cabin lights came on, illuminating a chamber that was surprisingly large and luxurious for such a small warship.  But then, she was trapped in the LinkShip until the day she died.  The designers had known they’d better make it comfortable.

She rubbed her forehead and sat up, trying to recover the dream.  It bugged her, more than she cared to admit.  She’d rarely dreamed since joining the navy ... but then, she supposed, she’d often been too tired to do anything more than throw herself on her bunk at the end of her shift and sleep until the next shift began.  Even now, with a small army of automatic helpers at her beck and call, she still got tired.  Her body was in the peak of health, and would remain that way until she died, but she could still get mentally tired.  And there was no one who could take her place.

Hameeda sighed, then reached out through her implants to touch the local processor.  The LinkShip was surrounded by the featureless darkness of FTL, effectively alone within the folded universe.  Her long-range sensors had picked up the occasional hint of other starships passing through FTL, but none of them had come close enough to exchange greetings.  They might have been hundreds of light years away, given how gravity waves propagated within FTL.  There was no way to be entirely certain of anything unless they came a great deal closer.  A status display appeared in front of her and she studied it.  She was definitely alone on the ship.

Perhaps I should have asked for a companion, she thought, ruefully.  Or a sexbot.

She snorted at the thought - she’d tried a sexbot when she’d reached her majority, only to discover that even the most humanoid robot wasn’t human - and swung her legs over the side of the bed.  The floor grew warm under her naked feet.  Hameeda didn’t bother to check her appearance in the mirror, let alone don her uniform, as she paced down the corridor and onto the bridge.  She felt a twinge of the old disappointment as she stepped through the airlock - the chamber was really nothing more than a single command chair, surrounded by holographic displays she rarely used - and then pushed it aside.  One day, all starships would be controlled by direct neural links and complex command bridges would be a thing of the past.  She rather suspected that would be a long time in the future.  A normal bridge might be less efficient, but it looked better.

Her lips quirked as she sat down, the neural links activating automatically.  Her awareness expanded, twinning itself time and time again with the starship’s processor nodes.  She took a long breath as a string of status reports fell into her head, each assessed by her intellectual-shadow and classed as non-urgent.  There was no reason to be concerned about anything, the network said.  She checked anyway, just to be sure.  The LinkShip was in perfect shape.  It was more than ready to carry out the mission.

Hameeda nodded to herself, then checked the FTL drive.  The LinkShip was rocketing towards Yunnan, a major Tokomak fleet base a few hundred light years from N-Gann.  If Solar Intelligence was correct - and Hameeda took everything the spooks said with a grain of salt - the Tokomak were massing ships there, preparing for ... something.  Hameeda’s tactical computers offered a number of possibilities, listed in order of probability.  They could launch a counterstroke at N-Gann, despite the presence of two-thirds of the Solar Navy; they could withdraw the ships to block a thrust towards Tokomak Prime; they might even be bracing themselves for a revolution, for a whole string of revolutions.  Hameeda had read the reports from the inner worlds.  There were literally hundreds of alien races that hated the Tokomak, but were too scared to rebel.  That might have changed, now the Tokomak had taken a black eye.  Their servants might be wondering if they could launch a successful revolt against their masters ...

And they’d better pray they could get away with it, if they did, Hameeda told herself.  The Tokomak won’t hesitate to burn entire planets to ash if that’s what they have to do to stop the rebels.

She shuddered.  She’d grown up in the Solar Union - she’d never set foot on Earth - but she’d heard the tales.  Her grandmother had been born in the most barbaric region of the planet, a place that was up against some pretty stiff competition.  She’d been aware, from birth until she’d escaped to space, that the strong did what they liked and the weak suffered what they must.  Hameeda had found it hard to believe, when she’d listened to her grandmother’s stories of near-permanent starvation, warlords, religious fanatics and raving misogynists who hated and feared women.  She believed it now.  The Tokomak would do whatever it took to keep themselves in power, fearful of what would happen if - when - they lost it.  They and their human enemies weren’t that different.

A timer appeared in her vision, counting down the final seconds.  Hameeda checked her weapons and shields again, bracing herself for the worst.  The FTL baffles were supposed to keep the enemy from detecting a ship in FTL, but the Tokomak might be wise to that trick by now.  They were unimaginative, not stupid.  And they were the ones who’d developed FTL travel.  The Solar Navy’s officers had spent years wondering just what, if anything, the Tokomak might have kept back for themselves.  They didn’t have to share everything with their allies.  Why should they?

There might be an ambush lying in wait for me, she mused.  Or they might be preparing to yank me out of FTL early and pound the hell out of me.

The timer reached zero.  The LinkShip hummed out of FTL.  Hameeda allowed herself a sigh of relief as the near-space sensors drew a blank, then started to deploy a handful of passive sensor platforms.  A torrent of information rushed into her sensor processors as the LinkShip coasted towards the planet, daring the local sensors to detect her.  Hameeda snorted to herself, half-wishing she could kick whoever had issued her orders.  She could have gotten a lot closer without any real risk of detection if she’d remained hidden under cloak, but the analysts wanted to know when - if - the locals spotted her when she wasn’t trying to hide.  It wouldn’t be long.  They might not have seen her coming - the lack of a welcoming committee suggested the locals hadn’t worked out how to track her yet - but they’d detect her drive emissions soon enough.  She rather suspected it was too much to hope that some automated sensor would decide she couldn’t be there and dismiss her as nothing more than a sensor glitch.  There was a war on.  The Tokomak would probably investigate any sensor contacts that appeared on their screens.

We could use that against them, she thought, wryly.  A few hundred fake contacts and they’d be ready to ignore an entire battle fleet bearing down on them.

She put the thought to one side as more and more data flowed into the sensors.  Yunnan had been populated by spacefaring races for thousands of years and it showed.  Four rocky worlds, three of them heavily developed; two gas giants, both surrounded by cloudscoops and hundreds of industrial nodes.  Her eyes narrowed as she recalled the history datafiles, the ones that stated the Tokomak had raised the natives from the mud and given them the keys to the stars.  Reading between the lines of flattery so cloying that even the most narcissistic human in existence would vomit in disgust, it was clear the Tokomak had enslaved the natives after discovering their world and its three gravity points.  They might have the stars, but only as passengers on someone else’s ships.  Their worlds were no longer theirs.  And they might - just - want to rebel.

Her lips tightened as her sensors picked out the signs of new construction around the gravity points.  The Tokomak were hastily fortifying them, although she wasn’t sure who they thought they were fortifying them against.  Admiral Stuart could take her fleet from N-Gann to Yunnan if she wished, but she’d prefer to take the long way through FTL rather than exhaust her fleet in punching through the gravity points.  The fortresses would be expensive white elephants if Yunnan itself was attacked.  They’d be unable to cover the planet and the gravity points.  She shook her head, mentally.  There might be other problems.  The Harmonies were only three jumps away and they had a powerful fleet.  They might be allies, as far as the Tokomak were concerned, but ... given a chance, who knew what they’d do?

The Tokomak probably don’t know, she thought.  And that might be why they’re building the fortresses.

A flash of red light flared across her vision.  The enemy had pinged her, active sensors sweeping her hull.  She watched, feeling a twinge of amusement, as their entire defence network flash-woke.  Her sensors drank it all in, noting the position of everything from active sensor platforms to orbital fortresses guarding the planets and their industrial nodes from enemy attack.  The Tokomak hadn’t skimped on the defences, as a handful of enemy cruisers left orbit and barrelled straight for her.  They’d clearly had some reason to fear attack.

And they might have been right, she thought.  They just didn’t expect it to come from us.

She watched the cruisers draw near, then kicked her drives into high gear.  The cruisers swept their sensors across her time and time again, the universal signal ordering the unlucky recipient to stop or be fired upon.  Hameeda wondered if they actually expected her to stop or if they were mindlessly following orders that had been written thousands of years before humans had discovered fire.  She swept closer, bracing herself for the moment they took the gloves off and opened fire.  They’d have a solid lock on her hull, with or without active sensors.  They might not give her any warning before they opened fire ...

There!  She sensed the flicker and threw the LinkShip into an evasive pattern, sweeping through a set of manoeuvres that would have been impossible for anything larger than a gunboat ten years ago.  A handful of shots rocketed through where she’d been, missing her cleanly.  She smirked as she darted near a cruiser, trying to dare the ship to fire ... knowing that if she missed, she might just hit one of her fellows.  The Tokomak ships could take a few hits, but would they take the chance?  She snorted as the enemy held their fire, then she altered course and headed directly towards Yunnan itself.  The enemy ships were left eating her dust.  They changed their course, following her, but it was too late.  The only way they’d ever get back into weapons range was if she let them.

The planet grew larger as she zoomed towards it.  The enemy panicked, hundreds of freighters leaving orbit and dropping into FTL without even bothering to boost themselves into high orbit first.  There’d be some trouble over that when the unlucky crews returned, she was sure.  Human bureaucrats were mindless fools - she’d met too many, even in the Solar Union - but Tokomak bureaucrats were worse.  The freighter crews would probably be stripped of their licences when the dust settled, if they were lucky.  Who knew?  Perhaps they’d make their way to N-Gann and join the Galactic Alliance instead.  They would be welcome.

She watched, grimly, as the planetary defences brought more and more weapons on line.  The orbital battlestations would be a major threat if she got too close, while - oddly - the giant ring surrounding the planet was studded with tactical sensors too.  She frowned, wondering if the ring had weapons mounted too.  That was odd - the Galactics were normally careful not to do anything that might make the rings targets - but there was a war on.  Perhaps they’d decided to gamble their human opponents wouldn’t risk an accidental genocide by destroying the ring and bombarding the planet with debris.  Or maybe they simply didn’t care.

They have to care, Hameeda thought.  The alternative was unthinkable.  The population below isn’t expendable.

She accessed her communications array and uploaded a handful of commands into the system as she swept into firing range.  The enemy CO was an idiot, as he opened fire the moment she flew into range ... extreme range.  A full-sized battleship could have evaded his missiles, let alone the nimble LinkShip.  Hameeda was tempted to hold her position and let him empty his magazines, if he was stupid enough to oblige her.  But the risks were too great.  A lucky hit - or an antimatter warhead - might do real damage.  She had no illusions.  The LinkShip was too small to soak up damage and keep going.  If she lost her shields, she was doomed.

The barrage of missiles grew stronger as she darted closer to the planet, evading them with almost effortless ease.  She wondered, idly, if someone was screaming at the CO to stop wasting missiles, to stop throwing warheads around too close to the ring for comfort.  A single nuclear warhead might not do much damage to a structure that literally surrounded an entire planet, but why take chances?  She evaded another spread of missiles, then dropped below the ring.  Thankfully, if there were any weapons on the ring, they held their fire.  Either they didn’t exist, or whoever was in charge was smarter ...

They could hardly be stupider, she thought.  She opened the communications array, searching for enemy nodes.  Here, so close to the planet, they couldn’t keep her from hacking the system without shutting down the entire network.  The Tokomak system wasn’t badly designed, but it had its flaws.  And humanity had had plenty of time to learn to take advantage of each and every one of them.  And now ...

She uploaded the hacking package, sending it into every communications node within reach.  The message would spread rapidly, using codes they’d hacked from other Tokomak systems to stay ahead of any mass-wiping programs.  It wouldn’t last forever, she’d been warned, but it would take them weeks to get rid of it ... weeks while the message, the call to war and revolution, would be seen by millions.  If only a tiny percentage of them rose against their masters, the Tokomak would have a real fight on their hands.  Who knew how much of their productive capability would be lost if they had to suppress a hundred revolts?

And how many of their servants and slaves will be butchered to keep the revolt from spreading, she thought, sourly.  The Tokomak had always reacted badly to any challenge, particularly from the younger races.  We could be doing the wrong thing here.

She put the thought away as new alerts flashed up in front of her.  The enemy were launching gunboats, hoping they could chase her out of low orbit and back into missile range.  She smiled, resisting the temptation to force them to play cat and mouse for the next few hours.  It would be entertaining, but she couldn’t risk being hit.  Not here.  She’d completed her mission and now it was time to run.  She altered course and dove towards the ring, flying into a giant starship repair yard.  A transport ship, large enough to carry a hundred LinkShips within its hull, was drifting within the yard, open to space. Hameeda flew right through it, resisting the urge to fire off a handful of missiles at the repair facilities.  It would hamper them - slightly - if they lost the yard, but the risk was unthinkable.  She wasn’t prepared to risk genocide.  Not now.  Not ever.

The enemy commander opened fire as she climbed into high orbit, his missiles sprinting towards her.  She cancelled her drives, coming to an abrupt stop, then dropped a handful of decoys before vanishing into FTL.  The combination of sensor static and gravity baffles should keep them from realising what she’d done ... she shook her head as she rocketed away from the system, all too aware that she’d never know.  They might think they’d destroyed her.  They might tell everyone they’d destroyed her.  They might not even know they were lying.  They might genuinely believe they’d destroyed her.

But no one will believe them, she thought.  They’ve lied so often that they won’t be believed even if they honestly think they’re telling the truth.

She put the thought aside as she waited long enough to be sure she was clear, then slipped her mind out of the network and fell back into her own body.  The experience wasn’t so disorienting now, thankfully ... she wiped sweat from her brow, her stomach grumbling angrily as it reminded her she hadn’t eaten anything for hours.  She disconnected herself from the chair and stood, feeling her legs wobble threateningly.  She’d have to force herself to exercise, during the flight to her next target.  There were limits to what a combination of genetic modification and nanotech helpers could do.

Not that it matters, she thought, as she headed to the galley.   She couldn’t be bothered to cook, but there were plenty of food patterns stored within the processor.  If we lose this war, there won’t be anything of us left.  And our opponents won’t hesitate to commit genocide.  

Chapter Two

There was an unfortunate truth of growing up a Stuart, Hoshiko had discovered a long time ago, that it was very hard to convince anyone, let alone everyone, that you’d earned something on your own merits.  The Solar Union had no formal aristocracy, but anyone who could claim descent from the original Founders had to deal with both the advantages and disadvantages of having such illustrious relatives.  And the simple fact that most of them were still alive and politically powerful made it even harder to defeat the charges of nepotism that were hurled about when one of their descendants reached a position of power.

It was an ironic point, Hoshiko had always considered.  She was hardly the black sheep of the family, not in any real sense, but she had openly disagreed with some of her illustrious relatives.  She wouldn’t have been reassigned to Antarctica - in reality, the Martina Sector - if she hadn’t pissed off a bunch of powerful people.  Openly disagreeing with the family was a capital crime, in the eyes of some of the oldsters.  It never seemed to occur to them that the younger generation didn’t share their emotional attachments and saw no reason to shed blood and treasure for the sake of a world that had been driven into the dirt by its inhabitants.  She didn’t regret what she’d done, but there were times when she wished the family wasn’t so rigid.  The younger generation was growing larger all the time.

She held herself at parade rest as the teleporter pad lit up, a beam of light materialising in front of her and condensing into the form of a man.   Steve Stuart - Grandpa Steve, to her - looked utterly unchanged, his age frozen at roughly thirty years old.  The oldsters didn’t care for the fads of the younger generation - they didn’t swap sexes or colour themselves like rainbows - but they had hang-ups of their own.  Steve looked old enough to be mature and yet young enough to be handsome.  It was hard for some of his peers to believe he was really in his second century.  He looked no older than Hoshiko herself.

“Grandpa.”  Hoshiko saluted, even though - technically - her grandfather was neither in the military nor a government official.  “Welcome to N-Gann.”

“Hoshiko,” Steve said.  He stepped off the pad and embraced her.  “It’s good to see you again.”

Hoshiko nodded as she hugged him back.  He’d always been there for her, a friendly ear when she’d started to rebel against her parents and - later - when she’d openly quarrelled with the rest of her family.  He hadn’t agreed with her - he’d made that clear - but he’d respected her right to have an opinion.  Hoshiko supposed that came with maturity.  It was just a shame her parents weren’t old enough to be trusted.  She snorted at the thought.  They were in their seventies and she was in her forties.  The Solar Navy wasn’t in the habit of giving fleet commands to children.

She let go of him and stepped back.  They were very different.  Steve was tall, muscular and blond, wearing a simple starship tunic that dated all the way back to the early days.  She was tall, with long black hair, almond eyes and tinted skin.  The older generation commented, sometimes, that Steve had married a woman from the other side of the world.  The younger generation didn’t care.  Hoshiko and most of her family were boring, to them.  They didn’t even change their skin colour to ensure they stayed fashionable, let alone anything else.  But then, being a Stuart brought responsibilities.  Hoshiko would probably have been disowned if she’d refused to serve at least one term in the military.

“This is a remarkable ship,” Steve said.  “And human-built.”

“From scratch,” Hoshiko agreed.  “And they’ve held up very well.”

She indicated the hatch.  “Would you care to accompany me?”

“It would be my pleasure,” Steve said.  “And thank you for not laying on any formal receptions.”

“I’m afraid there will be a formal dinner later,” Hoshiko told him.  “My staff wanted a chance to meet you, of course.  And I’m sure you wanted to meet them.”

She smiled as she heard her grandfather snort.  He’d always dreaded pressing the flesh.  And yet, he was easily the most famous person in the entire solar system.  His fame reached well beyond Earth and the Solar Union itself, the man who had turned an entire world on its head and given the human race the stars.  And brought the hope of freedom to countless billions of aliens.  He could do nothing else - he could die tomorrow - and he’d still be remembered as long as the human race endured.

This too is fleeting, Hoshiko reminded herself.  Sooner or later, everyone is forgotten.

She felt cold as she led him down the corridor and into her cabin.  The Tokomak Empire had endured for thousands of years - the Tokomak themselves had been spacefaring for far longer - and yet their entire existence was a mere eyeblink, on the scale of the entire universe.  A million races could rise, flourish and fall in the time it took for the galaxy to complete one grand cycle.  There were people who wondered why there weren’t hundreds of ancient races around, each one a million years older than any known race.  Some of their speculations were truly disturbing.  If there was something out there that ate advanced races ...

Or maybe they just travelled beyond the edge of the galaxy and vanished, Hoshiko thought, dryly.  We may never know.

She opened the hatch, motioned for him to take a seat and headed to the drinks cabinet.  “Can I get you anything?”

“Anything,” Steve said.  “I never had the time to develop expensive tastes.”

Hoshiko smiled as she poured them both a generous glass of Scotch.  It was surprisingly good, she’d been told, for Scotch that had never been anywhere near Scotland.  The oldsters might place value on alcoholic drinks that had matured for years, but the youngsters thought they were silly.  It was simplicity itself to program a food processor to turn out something that was effectively indistinguishable from the original.  But then, she supposed rarity alone gave the drink value.  There was a certain pleasure to be had in owning something expensive and showing off a little.

“I was hoping the government would send someone out here,” she said, as she passed him a glass.  “I wasn’t expecting it to be you.”

Steve laughed.  “You couldn’t lie to me when you were a little girl with a bow in her hair,” he said.  “What makes you think you can lie to me now?”

“The optimism of youth?”  Hoshiko grinned.  “What makes you think I’m lying to you?”

“I was a serving officer too,” Steve said.  “Back then, we had a real problem with micromanagement.  The oafs in the Oval Office thought they could issue orders in real time and get away with it.  Which they did.  It was us who paid the price.  Here ... you’d be foolish to expect the government to either hold your hand or issue orders you could actually follow.  By the time you got them ...”

“The situation would have moved on,” Hoshiko finished.  It took six months for someone to travel from Earth to Apsidal, let alone N-Gann.  It would take a year for her to request orders and receive them.  By then, things really would have moved on.   “And things are moving already.”

She sat down, resting her drink on her lap.  Command was a lonely place.  She didn’t have anyone she could confide in, let alone share her doubts and fears.  Her subordinates had problems of their own.  They didn’t need to know hers.  And ... she shook her head.  If she confessed her weaknesses, some of her subordinates would start to lose confidence in her and start second-guessing her at the worst possible time.  Steve Stuart, the man who had given Earth the stars, was perhaps the only person who understood the weight resting on her shoulders.  She could lose the war - and ensure the destruction of the entire human race - in an afternoon.

“We beat them,” she said.  She was sure Steve would have read the summary when he passed through Apsidal.  She was pretty sure he’d have read the entire report, from the cold-blooded analysis of the engagements to the formal assessments and suggestions for future operations.  He’d certainly had more than enough time.  “But we haven’t won the war.  Not yet.”

She keyed her terminal, projecting a holographic starchart.  N-Gann, Apsidal and the stars between them glowed green, although she knew that could change at any moment.  The Tokomak hadn’t started raiding her supply lines yet, but it was just a matter of time before that changed. They were probably reading their own history books, assessing how their ancestors had forged the greatest empire the galaxy had ever known.  Hoshiko had studied their texts, when she’d been preparing for her first deployment.  The alien authors had been long-winded bores - they never used one word when a thousand would do - but they’d generally made good points.   Their early campaigns provided insight into how they should run a war against the human race.

“We’re on the edge of the inner worlds now,” she said.  A tingle ran down her spine.  No invading fleet had so much as dared to slip so close to Tokomak Prime, even though there were still thousands of light years between N-Gann and the enemy homeworld.  “But that weakens our ties to Sol even as it brings us into contact with more and more of their mobile units.  They’re probably reactivating even more of them as we speak.”

She gritted her teeth.  It didn’t seem fair, somehow.  On the face of it, the numbers were so badly against the human race that it wasn’t even a contest. The Tokomak could afford to trade a hundred ships for each and every one of hers, including the gunboats, and come out ahead.  Their fleets could march towards Earth, blowing hell out of every blocking force they encountered until time eventually ran out.  She knew the situation wasn’t that bad - the Tokomak couldn’t even begin to man their entire fleet - but it was pretty damn bad.  And she was alone, right on the end of a branch.  She had no doubt the enemy was already plotting how best to saw it off behind her.

“We’ve heard reports of mass conscriptions,” she continued.  “We know their allies are sending spacers ... some more reluctantly than others.  We know time is not on our side.  We have the edge now, but that won’t last.”

“We’re in the same position as Imperial Japan,” Steve commented.  “We have to win quickly or not at all.”

Hoshiko nodded.  She’d studied her ancestors.  She still found it hard to believe that they’d risked war when the odds were so badly against them, although - as she’d dug into the geopolitical background, she’d started to realise that they’d faced the choice between fighting now or fighting later, perhaps under far worse conditions.  She had no sympathy for Imperial Japan - it had been as fascistic as Nazi Germany - but she understood the problem facing its leaders.  And Earth now faced a worse one.  The Tokomak would happily spend centuries hunting down every last human, just to make sure the threat was crushed beyond all hope of recovery.

“And that means taking the war into enemy space,” she said, calmly.  “And that means we cannot wait for orders from Earth.”

Steve lifted his eyebrows.  “Explain?”

Hoshiko met his eyes evenly.  She was sure he understood - he’d done the same when she really had been a little girl - but she knew he wanted to understand her reasoning.  It was quite possible, as she’d been taught in school, for two people to reach the same conclusions from widely different starting points and radically different logic.  And besides, Steve hadn’t commanded anything larger than a small squadron.  It was odd to realise that, in some ways, she had more experience than her grandfather.  The thought gave her an odd sense of reassurance.  She really wasn’t a child any longer.  She could stand up for herself.

“They’re already working on their defences.”  Hoshiko indicated the display, showing worlds and gravity points that were being hastily fortified.  “The longer we wait, the longer they’ll have to block our advance and bring more and more ships of their own online.  If we don’t move soon, we may have to resign ourselves to eventual defeat.  It may take decades for them to crush us, unless we come up with a real silver bullet, but crush us they will.  And that will be the end.”

She took a breath.  “Is there a silver bullet?”

“Not yet.”  Steve didn’t bother to dissemble.  “Admirals Webster and White have come up with a number of improvements, some of which have been added to our weapons already, but nothing that really changes the game.  They keep promising a war-winner ... unfortunately for them, everyone’s already read Superiority.  We do think there are some promising lines of research that will turn the enemy fleet into nothing more than scrap metal, but ...”

He shrugged.  Hoshiko understood.  “Don’t hold your breath, then.”

“Yes.”  Steve nodded.  “Right now, we don’t have much hope of really shifting the balance of power through new technology.  Give us a century, and ...”

Hoshiko nodded.  She’d heard rumours, so highly-classified that even a fleet admiral only heard whispers, of a handful of colony ships being launched into unexplored regions of space well beyond enemy control.  A human colony, so far from the Tokomak that they might never stumble across it, would make all kinds of advances as it fortified its position and built a whole new war fleet.  She understood the potential of GalTech better than most.  Given time, and unrestricted fabricators, a fleet could be built up in short order.  And if they lost the war, the colony would - one day - return to the sector and extract revenge.  Who knew?  Maybe their tech would advance so far it would be a very short war.

Or maybe not, she thought.  She hated the enemy, but she had to admit they’d been ingenious.  The war had killed off much of the deadwood infesting the enemy high command, giving them a chance to promote younger and more capable commanders in their place.  And, perhaps, galvanised their long-moribund research and development programs.  Given time, who knew what they’d do.  They might advance too, after the war.  We certainly showed them that technological advancement was still possible.

“Then we have to take the offensive.”  Hoshiko studied the starchart thoughtfully.  “Do you see any objections?”

Steve gave her a sharp look.  “Are you asking for my support, or for my opposition?”

“Your insight.”  Hoshiko wished, just for a moment, that they weren’t related.  It would be easier for them to disagree if they weren’t grandfather and grandchild.  “And your advice.”

“I would be far happier if we hadn’t drawn their attention when we did,” Steve said.  “I always knew it was inevitable, after we started expanding outside our own system, but I’d hoped we’d have a few more decades.  Their power was always hard to grasp.  At some point, the numbers become just ... statistics.”

He smiled, rather dryly.  “But that’s no help, is it?”

“No.”  Hoshiko indicated the starchart.  “Do you have any objections?”

“I have a lot of objections,” Steve said, bluntly.  “I dare say there will be hundreds of critics who will blast you for risking everything on one throw of the dice, if you lose.  Such people are like cockroaches.  You just can’t squash them.  And ... yes, I can see a great many things that could go wrong.  You can have those insights and welcome, in the hope that you can minimise the risks as much as possible.  But Hoshiko ...”

He took a breath.  “None of those objections outweigh the risk of sitting on our bums and doing nothing.  You said it yourself.  Time is not on our side.  We either take the offensive, and force them to react to us, or we concede eventual - certain - defeat.  There’s no prospect of being able to force them to stop, unless we really do come up with a silver bullet, and little prospect of blowing up their worlds and calling it a draw.  And ... I like to think we’re better than that.”

“Survival comes first,” Hoshiko said.  She hated the idea of mass planetary bombardment, but she wouldn’t hesitate to retaliate if the enemy started it.  Retaliation - or the creditable threat of retaliation - was the only thing that might deter the Tokomak from hitting Earth with antimatter bombs.  “If it’s them or us ...”

“Then you have to do whatever you can to ensure it really isn’t them or us,” Steve said.  He kept his voice very cold.  “Are those the sort of insights you wanted?”

“Yeah.”  Hoshiko had to smile.  Steve had been a good grandfather, looking after the grandkids without ever really spoiling them.  “I trust you’ll be joining the conference?”

“If I must.”  Steve looked amused.  “But won’t that undermine your authority?”

“I have a bunch of very keen subordinates,” Hoshiko said.  “Half of them will take your presence as a sign to start an argument.”

“Which is better than the alternative,” Steve told her.  “Believe me, insincere flattery isn’t worth having.  Someone has to play devil’s advocate and point out that the emperor has no clothes.  Not a safe place to be, not when I was your age, but important.”

He smiled in memory.  “Just as long as they remember they’re the ones on the sharp end.”

“Right now, we’re all on the sharp end,” Hoshiko said.  She drained her glass and stood.  “Coming?”

Chapter Three

Hoshiko forced herself to ignore Steve’s quiet gasp as she led him into the conference chamber.  It was striking, particularly to a groundpounder, but he’d been in space for longer than she’d been alive.  He should be used to immersive holographic environments by now, even ones that gave the impression they’d walked right through an airlock and into airless space.  Her lips quirked at the thought.  If they’d somehow jumped into space, they’d be dying by now.  Their implants and genetic enhancements had their limits.

Although people have survived long periods of exposure to vacuum with the right equipment, she thought, as she took her place in the centre of the chamber.  Some of them weren’t even permanently harmed by the experience.

She pushed the thought aside as she studied the god’s eye view in front of her.  The fleet itself, positioned close enough to the gravity point to reinforce the defences without sacrificing the ability to move rapidly to the defence of N-Gann itself; the planet, with its cluster of improvised defences and industrial nodes that had been reconfigured to support her fleet; the hundreds of freighters moving in and out of the system, carrying word of the war and enemy defeats back to their homeworld.  She knew some of them might not be friendly - their sensor records would give the enemy insight into her defences - but there was nothing she could do about it.  They didn’t have time to search every ship that wanted to visit N-Gann.  Some of her officers had suggested closing the system, banning everything that wasn’t human, but she’d overruled them.  The Galactic economy was already a mess.  They didn’t need more reasons to hate humanity.

“It never fails to awe me,” Steve said, quietly.  He was studying the giant ring orbiting N-Gann.  “They built on such a scale and then ... they just lost the urge to keep going.”

Hoshiko shrugged.  The Tokomak were a planet-bound race.  They might have lived and worked in space for longer than humanity had known how to use fire, but they still kept the mindset of their ancestors.  They still thought there were limits.  Hoshiko and her generation, on the other hand, wouldn’t live on a planet if they were paid.  The limits that kept groundpounders ... grounded simply didn’t exist in space, where there was endless living space, unlimited resources and vast sources of energy. The Solar Union didn’t need planets.  It just needed asteroids, technology and a willingness to work.  They’d be building rings of their own soon, if they didn’t move straight to Dyson Spheres.  She’d seen the plans drawn up by idealists, for the days after the war.  A Dyson Sphere would be something new.  No one, not even the Tokomak, had tried to enclose an entire sun.

“I guess they never realised the limits had vanished,” she said, quietly.  “And there are humans who have the same problem.”

“It’s an old problem.”  Steve shot her a sharp look.  “Too much conservatism and you end up with stagnation, decline and eventual defeat.  Too much progressivism and you end up with chaos, decline and eventual defeat.  The trick is to find a way to balance them.”

Hoshiko shrugged and returned her attention to the display as her senior officers started to flicker into view, her eyes studying the links between gravity points that led towards Tokomak Prime.  The display felt a little condensed - in reality, the stars were nowhere near that close - but she understood.  Control of a gravity point allowed someone to jump light years in a single bound, eliminating the distance between the two star systems.  There was no need to worry about the stars and planets in the middle if you could just jump across them.  She supposed that explained some of the oddities of galactic civilisation.  Earth had remained largely unmolested for so long because the closest gravity point was fifty light years away.  It was no wonder, to her, that the Tokomak hadn’t bothered to fortify the points.  As long as they’d possessed the biggest fleet in the known universe, there’d been no need.

Her lips twitched.  And now that’s come back to bite them on the behind, she thought, coldly.  I bet they regret it now.

She cleared her throat as the last of the images blinked into existence, a handful of warning messages and security notifications scrolling through the air.  Holographic conferences could be awkward at times, and there were lingering fears over security, but they had very definite advantages.  If nothing else, she didn’t have to assemble her senior officers on a single starship.  The enemy would have to get very lucky to take out all the flag officers with a single hit, but she didn’t feel like taking chances.  War was dangerous enough without running crazy risks.

“You have all had a chance to review the latest reports,” she said.  “On one hand, we have received reinforcements from Sol.  On the other, we have not received any real orders.  The ships were dispatched well before we arrived at Apsidal, let alone captured, lost and recaptured the system.  We remain bound to do as we see fit, within certain limits.  And we must face certain unpleasant realities.  The longer we stay here, tied to a handful of systems, the greater the chance of losing the war.  They - our enemies - are already building up their defences.

“They are not going to talk to us.  They’ve ignored the message drones we’ve sent, offering to discuss a truce.  That may be lucky - delay works in their favour, not ours - but the blunt truth is that the war is going to be fought to a finish.  Either we crush their ability to make war on us, by blasting our way to Tokomak Prime itself and forcing them to surrender, or we concede eventual defeat.  There are no other options.”

She paused.  “Does anyone wish to dispute my assessment?”

There was a pause.  No one spoke.  Hoshiko wasn’t surprised.  Her senior officers were a mixed bag, from men and women who would follow her unquestioningly to people who feared her drive or simply wanted her position for themselves.  But they were all experienced officers, people who knew the facts of life.  Some would be more optimistic, others would be more pessimistic, but they’d all understand the realities.  Their time was running out.

“We have no choice,” she said, when it was clear no one was going to speak.  “We must resume the offensive now, before they have a chance to recover and take the offensive themselves.  Towards that” - she tapped her remote, altering the holographic display - “I have drawn up a handful of operational plans.  My staff have refined them into basic concepts.”

She smiled, rather grimly.  Her staff had done a great deal more than merely refine them.  They’d drawn up plans for actually putting her concepts into operation, putting together scenarios and simulations that suggested what might happen if one or more of the concepts were put into operation.  Hoshiko dreaded staff work, but she appreciated it.  The backbone of any interstellar war was logistics, which required careful planning.  She dreaded to think what would happen if they outran their logistics and found themselves unable to either fight or retreat.

“There are three basic concepts,” she continued.  “Plan Donitz calls for the fleet to cruise around the inner worlds, blowing merry hell out of their defences and logistical support network.  If we’re lucky, it might even encourage some of the peons to rebel.  The advantage of this plan is that we might avoid a decisive defeat, particularly if we split the fleet; the disadvantage is that we risk being defeated in detail, with each separate squadron being crushed by overwhelming force.  And we won’t be touching the core of their power.

“Plan Nimitz calls for a single solid thrust through the gravity point and straight towards Tokomak Prime.  We wouldn’t be messing around, not this time.  We’d be driving on their homeworld and they’d know it.  The advantage of this plan is that, if we win, we win.  The war will be over.  The disadvantage is that they’d mass everything to meet us, which means we might lose most of the fleet for nothing.  We’d be risking everything on one throw of the dice.

“Plan Wellington is a little more subtle.  We’d split the fleet. One force would proceed through the gravity point, accompanied by sensor drones and everything else that might convince the enemy that we’re actually running with Plan Nimitz.  The other force, the main force, would creep around the enemy position and come at Tokomak Prime from an unexpected direction.  At that point, the enemy would be caught between two fires.  The advantage of this plan is that we’d have a shot at the enemy homeworld, without giving them a convenient bottleneck they can use to stop us.  The disadvantage is that the two fleets wouldn’t be in close contact.  Coordinating an assault on an interstellar scale is never easy.”

She allowed herself a cold smile.  “But that might be an advantage,” she said.  “They know the KISS principle as well as we do.  They’d never expect us to risk a two-prong assault.”

“They risked one themselves, at Apsidal,” Admiral Rolf Hanker pointed out.  “And they kicked our ass.”

“They had more ships to play with,” Hoshiko reminded him.  “They still do.”

She took a breath.  “There are advantages and disadvantages to all three plans,” she pointed out.  There was no point in trying to deny it.  “But I would prefer to go with Plan Wellington.  It offers us the greatest chance of victory, mingled with the ability to concede defeat and fall back if it becomes clear that things haven’t gone in our favour.  And even if we fail” - her hands clenched, just for a second - “we’ll give them one hell of a fright.  We might even be able to do a lot of damage to their industrial base.”

Admiral Teller frowned.  “You’ve made up your mind?”

“Talk me out of it, if you can.”  Hoshiko hid her annoyance.  She’d called a council of war to ensure she had their support, as well as their obedience.  The price was that they were free to pick holes in the plan, if they could.  “Or would you rather we gave them time to pick themselves up and come at us with a very large fleet?”

“A very large fleet,” Admiral Hanker said.  “If they get even half of their ships online ...”

“We’ve all seen the projections,” Teller snapped.  “If we risk everything, here, we ... we risk everything.”

“Yes.”  Hoshiko kept her voice even, somehow.  “Might I remind you that our enemy is ruthless?  They’ve already started pogroms against humans in their territory.  It won’t be long before they start crushing everyone who dares stand up to them.  This is not a war that can be ended by a peace conference, with everyone agreeing to disagree.”

She slipped into deliberate crudity to make her point.  “We cannot bend over for them, in the knowledge that our submission brings our survival.  They won’t be content with crushing our independence and raping our bodies and souls until we can do no more than mouth platitudes ... perhaps even come to believe them.  They will destroy us, utterly.  Every last man, woman and child will die.  Defeat means the end of the fucking universe!”

There was dead silence.  “We have to stay on the offensive,” she warned.  “And that means taking the fleet to Tokomak Prime and tearing the guts out of their empire once and for all.”

She took a moment to gather herself.  “Or would anyone like to dispute it?  Does anyone think we can come to terms with them?”

“No.”  Steve’s voice was very quiet, but it caught their attention.  “I don’t think anyone can dispute it.”

“War to the knife, then,” Hoshiko said.  She knew it was going to be brutal.  “And for that, we need Plan Wellington.”

“We might be able to encourage the oppressed masses to rise,” Teller pointed out.  “If we take out the orbital defences ...”

“It won’t make that much difference,” Hanker snapped.  “If we captured their worlds intact, complete with their industrial bases, we will still be fucked.  Given time, they can crush us effortlessly.  The projections make that clear.”

“Quite.”  Hoshiko nodded, curtly.  “I would like to believe the oppressed masses will rise against their masters and tear out their throats.  But we have no way of knowing when it will happen, if indeed it will happen.  They may be waiting for us to liberate them.  They may be waiting for us to slay their alien masters in their lair.  Or they may be fearful of what we will do to them.  The bottom line is that we cannot rely on triggering an uprising and, even if one did take place, it wouldn’t help us.  Not immediately.”

She shuddered, envisioning alien battleships descending on rebellious worlds. The Tokomak wouldn’t bother to land ground troops, not unless they had some reason to try to recover the worlds intact.  They’d just bombard indiscriminately, slaughtering rebels and loyalists alike to deter other worlds from rising against them.  Entire cities would be wiped out in an eyeblink, taking millions of lives with them.  And Hoshiko wouldn’t be able to retaliate, not for worlds that weren’t part of the Galactic Alliance.  That would open Earth and the other Alliance worlds to attack.

“There is something to be said for simplicity,” Hanker said.  He indicated the starchart with one hand.  “Plan Nimitz ensures we can bring all of our firepower to bear against the target, without trying to be clever.  Being clever is a good way to get one’s butt kicked.”

“It’s a minimum of nine gravity points between N-Gann and Tokomak Prime,” Hoshiko pointed out.  “Twelve, if we go a slightly longer route.  That’s nine possible bottlenecks they can use to bleed us white, each of which will cost us dearly in ships, munitions and manpower.  And they will know we’re coming.  They will have ample time to assemble a fleet to block us, if they don’t already have fortifications in place.  We have to assume they’ve learnt from their experiences.  We did that to them in the lead up to the last set of battles.”

“We would also not be risking losing contact between two prongs,” Teller objected.  “At best, it will take weeks to get a message from one prong to the other.  At worst, we’d lose touch altogether.”

“There’s no way to avoid it,” Hoshiko said.  “Unless you have a long-range FTL communicator in your pocket ...”

Teller snorted.  “Admiral, I understand your point,” he said.  His voice was very calm.  “But I also have to check you understand the dangers.”

“War is never safe,” Steve said.  “When I was a young man, just going through basic training, there were people who believed they could eliminate risk entirely.  Some of them believed they could use technology to make sure that the only people who died were the ones on the other side, our clear and irredeemable enemies.  They believed they could somehow prevent innocent deaths and” - he shook his head - “they meant well, I believe, but they made wars worse.  They kept us from applying overwhelming force until it was too late for a quick and decisive campaign.

“There are risks here, as there are everywhere.  But the risk of losing becomes progressively greater, the longer we delay.  We can either take action now or sit and wait to be hit.  And we cannot afford to be hit.  A single major defeat will be the end of us.”

“Yes, sir,” Hanker said.

Teller’s eyes narrowed.  “Is that your opinion as an officer in the navy, sir?”

Hoshiko felt a hot flash of anger.  Steve showed no visible reaction.  “It’s an opinion born of fifteen years in the United States military, then my experiences in the Solar Union and the galaxy at large,” he said, calmly.  “Right now, we have the edge.  If we delay, that edge will start to blunt.  We’ve all read the reports.  If they bring their entire fleet online, or rationalise their industrial production, we’re finished.  They will bury us in weapons that are qualitatively inferior to ours, but ... there will be millions of them.  And that, as the admiral said, will be the end of the world.  We cannot back down.  We either tear their throats out or get crushed.”

“Yes, sir,” Teller said, stiffly.  “That said, we may not have the power to tear their throats out.”

“Yes.”  Hoshiko schooled her face into immobility.  It was Teller’s job to voice his concerns, if he had them.  And he had every reason to be irked at Steve’s intervention.  “But we have to move now.”

She looked from face to face.  “I estimate it will take us two weeks to integrate the newcomers and assemble the support fleet,” she said.  She had no idea how many of the locals would stay with them, once they launched the big offensive.  “I intend to launch Plan Wellington.  Before then, we will simulate all the possible outcomes and do our best to reduce the variables.  It will not be easy, but ... we have no choice.  Earth is depending on us.”

The holographic star charts vanished at her command.  “We will allow them to think we’re moving with Plan Nimitz,” she added.  “We won’t take our security too seriously.  They have to have spies watching us.  Let them think we’re going the easy way.  Let them think that ... until we appear in the worst possible place.”

Teller smiled.  “For them or for us?”

“We’ll see.”  Hoshiko felt a flicker of anticipation.  They were finally about to resume the offensive.  The last few weeks had been spent refitting the fleet, integrating their alien allies and considering their options.  Important, but boring.  “Dismissed.”

Chapter Four

Here we go, Hameeda thought, as the LinkShip dropped out of FTL.  An alien system appeared in front of her, a handful of icons turning red as their active sensors came online and locked onto her hull.  Again.

She smiled, rather coldly.  She’d flown through four systems in the last week, buzzing a handful of enemy facilities, uploading her messages and generally making it clear that she could have done a great deal of damage if she’d wished.  She had no doubt the message had been received, if only because of the ever-increasing enemy defences ... all of which had been putting immense strain on their sensor arrays by ramping them up as much as possible.  She hated to think how much stress they were putting on the crews, who were only flesh and blood.  No military force could remain on alert indefinitely and hope to be in fighting trim when the alert finally came.

And they knew I was coming, this time, she thought.  She’d flown in as close to a straight line as possible, cutting her flight time to the bare bone.  The Tokomak were unimaginative, but even they could see the pattern.  They had to know she was coming here.  And they’re ready for me.

She felt her smile grow wider as more and more enemy defences revealed themselves.  The system - it had an alien name she couldn’t even begin to pronounce - didn’t have a ring, but it did have a handful of smaller orbital stations and defences.  Her files informed her that the lack of a gravity point and other, more useful systems only a few short light years away, had kept the aliens from really developing the system.  It was a little looser than most of the core worlds, with a surprising amount of racial equality ... even between the Tokomak and their subject races.  She was almost sorry it was on the list of targets.  Perhaps, just perhaps, she didn’t have to push things too far.

Another alert flashed up in front of her.  The enemy communications network was down.  Her eyes narrowed as her sensors probed the system, picking up only a tiny handful of signals and communications nodes ... the latter so heavily encrypted that she knew they were military installations.  The entire system seemed to have gone dark.  She cursed under her breath as she realised what it meant. The defenders had shut down the entire system, rather than risk having her uploading the message into a hacked node.  They’d risked all manner of death and destruction just to keep her from talking to them!  It almost made her smile, even though it meant her mission was doomed.  At least they were taking her seriously.

And they’ll get copies of the message anyway, she thought.  There would be copies fanning out from all the worlds she’d visited, no matter what the Tokomak tried to do about it.  It was quite possible the message had already reached the new system.  And by trying to wipe it, they’ll only harm their credibility further.

She was tempted to jump back into FTL and vanish, conceding - for the moment - that there was no point in trying to slip further into the system.  In hindsight, perhaps she should have sneaked into the system and hacked the datanet before announcing her presence.  There was no way they could shut down the datanet indefinitely, not when everything from the local stock market to life support systems depended on it.  The Tokomak had never heard of distributed computer networks, she’d been told.  A centralised network was much easier to monitor, police and shut down.  Smart resistance movements knew better than to rely on the enemy communications network.

And here I come, she thought, as she angled towards the alien ships.  Are you ready for me?

The alien ships grew larger as she zoomed closer.  They were old, even by Tokomak standards.  They looked to have been passed through a dozen hands before finally winding up in a fifth-rank star system.  They’d be good for intimidating smugglers and primitives, she thought, but it was clear they hadn’t been refitted with modern weapons.  They were little more than targets for a modern ship, even a simple destroyer.  Hameeda was tempted to power up her weapons and put the ancient ships out of their misery.  But it would be a waste of weapons she couldn’t afford to squander.

She deployed a handful of drones instead, surrounding herself with a web of false sensor images.  The enemy targeting locks slipped as they realised they were suddenly facing seven different targets, or one real target and six decoys.  Their sensors weren’t good enough to tell the difference, not even at close range.  They’d have to engage all the possible targets ... Hameeda allowed herself a smile as she blazed forward, throwing her ship into a series of evasive manoeuvres as she finally entered weapons range.  The enemy CO was a little too smart to be in command of such rustbuckets.  He was careful to hold his fire until she got closer, rather than wasting missiles trying to hit her at extreme range.  This far from the core, in such a low-priority system, she would be surprised if there were any missile production facilities.  Her opponent might have to wait for months until he received replacements from the core worlds ...

The enemy ships launched missiles, trying hard to coordinate their fire.  Hameeda gleefully screwed with their targeting, deploying a handful of additional drones to ensure they didn’t come remotely close to her.  They didn’t have antimatter warheads either ... she smirked, then evaded a missile that locked onto one of its fellows, destroying both of them in a single blinding flash.  The enemy CO was good, but his tech really wasn’t up to the job.  She fought down the urge to open hailing frequencies and transmit an entire list of insults right across the system.  Instead, she transmitted the message instead.  Someone would be listening.  Who knew?  Maybe they’d record the message and upload it to the datanet when the system came back online.

She blazed through the enemy formation, feinted at the planet and turned away, aiming for deep space.  The enemy might have had a chance to set an ambush, if they’d had the time to summon a more modern squadron, but they’d squandered it.  She sent the message one final time, then drove onwards into the night.  Behind her, the enemy ships turned and retreated towards the planet.  She didn’t want to know what might be going through their commander’s head.  The idealist in her hoped he wouldn’t suffer for his failure.  The cold-blooded part of her noted that he really had been disturbingly competent, compared to most of his fellows.  If the enemy killed him, it would work out in humanity’s favour ...

This war will probably get him killed before too long anyway, she told herself.  She didn’t bother to cloak as she rocketed away from the planet.  They’d already be on the verge of losing track of her, if they hadn’t already lost her.  And that will be the end.

A radio signal, surprisingly primitive, blinked up in her mind’s eye.  Someone was trying to hail her?  She stared in astonishment, studying the line of code words and phrases that scrolled through the system.  They were all positive, all human, but ... she frowned, remembering just how popular human movies and television series had become amongst the younger Galactics.  It was possible, just possible, that it was a trap.  A very un-Tokomak trap, if it was a trap, but that alone would recommend it.  The Tokomak knew she could evade any enemy fleet, as long as she saw it.  A smaller ship might just get through her defences and into position to take a clear shot at her hull.

She frowned, reaching out through her sensors.  A lone freighter drifted in space, almost completely powered down.  There was no way in hell anyone on the planet, now falling behind her at a terrifying rate, would know it was there.  She wasn’t even sure they would have seen the freighter arrive.  She hadn’t picked up any major sensor arrays around the planet.  And that meant ...

If this is a trap, they would have had to put the freighter along my exit vector, she mused.  It was possible that someone had guessed her exit vector, but ... how would they have known where and when she’d drop into FTL.  The trap would have failed completely if she’d vanished after escaping the planet.  She wouldn’t even have known it was there.  But if this isn’t a trap ... what is it?

She opened a communications link, narrowing the beam to reduce the chance of eavesdroppers.  It was unlikely there were any prowling around, but ... the odds of encountering the freighter were very low too.  She didn’t care to calculate them.  There was a pause, then a response.  Audio only.

“This is Samuel Piece,” the voice said.  Her analysis software insisted it was a human voice, although that was meaningless.  Deepfakes had been a problem for decades.   The Tokomak wouldn’t have any trouble faking a human voice, if it occurred to them to try.  “I request that you pick myself and my comrades up before they catch us.”

“This is Captain Hameeda,” Hameeda said.  Her computers blinked up a number of people with the same name, none of whom she knew personally.  A couple had obscured files, suggesting they worked for Solar Intelligence.  “Explain yourself.”

There was no answer for a long moment, long enough for Hameeda to start to worry.  She checked her FTL drive, ready to jump out and run at a moment’s notice.  If this was some kind of trap ... she was sure she could get out before the jaws slammed closed.  But she knew better than to take it for granted.  If the freighter was crammed with antimatter, she was already inside the blast radius.  And there would be no warning before the blast wave hit her.

“I admit you don’t know us from Adam,” Piece said, finally.  “I have ID codes in my implants and ...”

Hameeda frowned.  Human slang was suggestive, although she knew it proved nothing too.  A skilled xenospecialist could put a profile together and then ... she closed her eyes for a long second, trying to think.  If Piece was human, perhaps a deep-cover agent, she had to recover him.  If not ... she cursed.  She’d have to put her ship and herself at risk, in a place where no one would ever know what had happened if things went wrong, or ... or she’d never know if she’d done the right thing.

“I have four people with me,” Piece continued.  “They require asylum.”

“Really.”  Hameeda made up her mind.  “Power down your ship, then transfer yourselves to the escape pod and launch yourself into space.  My drones will collect you.  Or stay where you are.”

“Understood.”  Piece didn’t sound surprised.  “We’ll be out in a moment.”

Hameeda gritted her teeth as she launched the drones.  In hindsight, she should have requested a marine platoon or two before setting out to wreak havoc.  She disliked the idea of company, at least for longer than a few days, but they’d have been very useful now.  Instead, she had to watch through the drones as they powered their way towards the escape pod.  Piece seemed to be following orders.  She hoped that was a good sign.

The drones split up as they approached the pod, two heading to the pod itself and the others inspecting the freighter.  Up close, it was so old that Hameeda was surprised the hull itself wasn’t starting to decay.  She hated to think just how many people had owned the ship before it reached its final pair of hands.  The drones probed the airlock warily, then opened the hatch and slipped inside.  The air was cooling rapidly - a handful of warning signs suggested there were tiny breaches in the hull - but the drones had no trouble picking human DNA out of the air.  Hameeda allowed herself a moment of relief as the drones hacked the ship’s datacore, then turned her attention to the escape pod.  If it was a trap, it was a very odd one.

She peered through their sensors as they dragged the pod towards the LinkShip.  Piece himself was a dark-skinned human male, his face scarred and pitted.  Beside him were three aliens, fragile-looking green-skinned humanoids she didn’t recognise.  Piece had a handful of implants, including one that pinged a Solar Union IFF code at her when she scanned it.  The other three were completely barren of tech.  It looked as if they’d had implants, from the deep scans, but they’d been removed at one point.

The scans kept pulsing, breaking their bodies down to the submolecular level.  Piece carried a pistol, seemingly of human design ... a chemical weapon, rather than a phaser or blaster.  The others carried a handful of tools, some of which were clearly designed to function as weapons with a little imagination.  She scanned them carefully, then decided she was being silly.  They didn’t have anything really dangerous.  She’d feared a backpack nuke or antimatter containment chamber.  The only thing Piece would have had to do to take her out, if he’d had one of those, was simply turn it off.  

Well, she thought.  It is either a very weird trap or they’re innocents.

She paused long enough to assess the live feed from the freighter’s datacore - it was so old that she suspected it was rather unreliable, the starcharts so badly corrupted that it was impossible to trace the vessel’s flight path - then made up her mind.  “Remove all your tools and weapons and place them to one side,” she ordered.  “Prepare for teleport.”

Piece made no objection, putting his gun to one side with casual ease.  The others looked more reluctant and didn’t seem inclined to obey until Piece pushed them into it.  Hameeda felt a flicker of sympathy as she activated the teleporter, beaming the three aliens into a stasis chamber.  Piece looked surprised, his expression suddenly freezing as he was teleported into a second chamber.  Hameeda studied the matter feed through her sensors as they materialised, making very sure there were no surprises within their bodies.  Her biosensors reported nothing, but that was meaningless.  The Galactics were ancient.  They’d invented the teleporters.  They would presumably know how to circumvent them.

And the stasis fields worked perfectly, she mused.  They can wait there until I deal with them.

She took one last look at the freighter, then recovered her drones and dropped into FTL.  There was no hint that anyone on the planet was watching her - she was fairly sure they’d lost track of her - but she took evasive action anyway.  She’d have to be more careful when she reached the next system, if Piece didn’t convince her to cut her mission short and go elsewhere.  He’d sought her out, perhaps deliberately.  And that meant ... what?

The hacked datacore files lay open in front of her.  She cursed under her breath, wishing she could have a long chat with the engineer who maintained the piece of junk.  The machine was so outdated that a pre-space human computer would be more capable, at least when it came to keeping the starship functional.  It looked as if someone had systematically disabled a number of safety features, each one more important than the last.  The Tokomak were very keen on safety - they worked so many safeguards into their starships that they actually impeded their operations - but they weren’t completely wrong.  Or misguided.  She was mildly surprised the freighter hadn’t exploded when it jumped into FTL.

Score one for the Tokomak, she thought, as she disconnected herself from the neural net and stood.  She wanted to eat, but ... she also wanted to talk to Piece.  She ran his ID through her records and came up with a classified file, marked with the Solar Intelligence verification code.  It was something of a relief.  Whatever else she’d done, at least she hadn’t wasted her time.  And I need to know what he’s doing here.

She ate quickly, taking something from the store rather than bothering to cook for herself, then headed into the shower.  She’d have to wear something if she was coming face to face with a stranger.  An alien might not notice - interspecies sex was rare, and flatly banned amongst the Galactics - but Piece would.  She snorted at the thought as she checked the internal defences, just in case.  Piece probably couldn’t be conditioned to turn against the Solar Union -his implants would see to it - but there was no reason he couldn’t be bribed or threatened into compliance.  The Tokomak had a lot of collaborators.  They could hardly be slouches when it came to finding out what someone wanted and offering it to them.

A deep-cover agent would know better, she told herself, flatly.  Right?

She sighed as she dressed rapidly, the simple tunic feeling odd against her skin.  She’d grown too used to walking around naked.  Normally, she wouldn’t care if anyone saw her, but right now ... there were too many uncertainties, too many things she didn’t know, for her to allow herself any distraction.  She had to know what was going on before she committed herself to anything.

The LinkShip hummed around her, steadying her.  She relaxed into its embrace, silently praising the designers.  If she had to spend the rest of her life on a starship, this one would be more than enough.  Who knew?  After the war was over, if she survived, she could slip into unexplored space and seek out new life and new civilisations.

“To boldly go where no one has ever gone before,” she quoted.  “Apart from the people who already live there, of course.”

Smiling, she headed to the stasis chambers.

Chapter Five

Up close, floating in the stasis field, Samuel Piece looked almost peaceful.

Hameeda studied him, both through her eyes and through a dozen different medical and security sensors.  He was definitely human, to the ninth decimal place.  His DNA spoke of an origin in the Solar Union, rather than Earth or one of the human colonies established by aliens who wanted their human slaves to breed.  He was quite heavily enhanced, with both biological tweaks and implants.  She was mildly impressed.  He was almost as heavily implanted as herself.

And he’d be more so, if he wasn’t trying to hide his implants, she mused.  A GalTech scanner might miss most of Piece’s augmentations, although Hameeda wouldn’t have cared to bet her life on it.  Perhaps one of his implants was designed to feed false readings back to the scanner.  The Galactics took their tech for granted, but surely it would have occurred to them that their scanners could be fooled.  As technology advanced, the technology to fool it advanced too.  But his implants don’t seem to be messing with my scanners.

She took a step back, then deactivated the stasis field with a thought.  Piece staggered as the blue light vanished, looking around wildly as the tractor field caught him before he could hit the deck.  To him, it must have seemed like an instant transfer from his ship to the stasis field.  He’d known he was being teleported, but ... Hameeda nodded to herself as he stood up.  Piece clearly wasn’t someone who could be stunned by a simple trick.  He would have expected her to take precautions.

His eyes alighted on her, looking her up and down in a manner that slightly discomforted her.  It wasn’t sexual, as far as she could tell.  His eyes didn’t linger on her breasts.  He was evaluating her as a potential threat.  She braced herself, ready to snap the stasis field back into existence if he did anything dangerous.  She had no qualms about keeping him in stasis and taking him back to N-Gann.  Admiral Stuart could deal with him.  Hameeda was sure she’d have the codes to unlock his implants, if there was no other choice.  And the codes to confirm his identity.

Piece met her eyes.  “This is a human ship?”

“I thought we’d already established that,” Hameeda said, dryly.  “What can I do for you?”

“Take me and my companions to higher authority, wherever that may be.”  Piece looked around, his eyes narrowing.  “What is this ship?”

Hameeda frowned.  “Classified,” she said.  He was sharp.  The LinkShip was hardly a conventional ship.  He’d picked up on that very quickly.  “Come with me.”

She turned and led him through to the gallery, grimly aware of his eyes following her.  Piece would have to be an idiot to miss the absence of other crewmen.  He knew the LinkShip was small, compared to most FTL ships, but not that small.  She wondered, idly, what he made of it.  It was standard procedure to quarantine strangers, isolating them from the rest of the crew in case they had bad intentions, but the LinkShip didn’t really have the space.  The majority of the hull was crammed with weapons, sensors and drives.  There was enough room for her, and perhaps one or two more, but after that ... they’d have to get very friendly.

“What would you like?”  She waved him to a chair and turned to the drink processor.  “I’m having tea.”

“Tea would be fine, thanks.”  Piece sank into a chair, looking more relaxed.  “Where is the fleet now?”

“N-Gann.”  Hameeda was surprised he didn’t already know.  Or perhaps it wasn’t a surprise.  The Tokomak hadn’t been able to hide the fall of Apsidal and much of the Apsidal Chain, but they’d stayed mum about losing N-Gann.  They’d never lost a fleet base, not in all their thousands of years of unquestioned dominance.  The news broadcasts she’d picked up had carefully avoided mentioning anything about N-Gann.  “They took the world a couple of months ago.”

Piece looked up, sharply.  “Really?  I was told N-Gann was impregnable.”

Hameeda smiled.  “They did say that, didn’t they?  It must be very embarrassing for them.”

She picked up the mugs and handed one of them to him.  “And now we’re on our way to N-Gann,” she said, “I think you owe me an explanation.  Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I told you,” Piece said.  “I’m a deep cover agent on long-term assignment ...”

“And you had the wit to flag me down,” Hameeda said, curtly.  “How did you even know where to meet me?”

“I didn’t.”  Piece grinned at her.  “It was a stroke of luck.”

“Really,” Hameeda said, drawing out the word.  “What happened?”

Piece straightened.  “To cut a long story short, I was assigned to a freighter crew with orders to jump ship when we reached the twins, the Alphan Stars.  My mission was to make contact with dissidents there and see what, if any, support we could offer them.  The dissidents were very pleased to see me, for obvious reasons, and we forged an alliance.  They don’t think much of our chances, I should add, but they know we’re the only game in town.”

Hameeda nodded, slowly.  “And how much of the story are you leaving out?”

“Just the details no one wants to know,” Piece said.  “I’ll have to put them in my report, of course, but ... right now, no one wants to hear them.  Anyway ... I was helping them to establish communications networks by piggybacking signals on the enemy communications systems and setting up operative cells for direct action.  It wasn’t easy, as most of the dissidents hate each other almost as much as they hate the Tokomak, but ... we were getting somewhere when we heard the war had turned hot.  Again.”

“Again,” Hameeda echoed.

“It was hard to be sure,” Piece said.  “The Tokomak managed to blank out a great many reports before they reached us.  They’re still pretty much in control of everything, corewards, and they’re cracking down hard.  The dissidents lost a lot of cells after their enemies started peering into everything.  The rest had to go deeper underground.  There’s a lot - and I mean a lot - of people who’d turn on the Tokomak in an instant, if they thought they could win, but right now the Tokomak look to be in control.”

He took a sip of his tea.  “My friends and I thought it might be a good idea to contact the fleet and request help,” he said.  “We set out, intending to travel to Apsidal.  It wasn’t easy.  We had to take the long way ‘round.  We were planning to swap ships here” - he jerked a finger at the bulkhead - “when you entered the system.  I decided it might be easier to contact you and request a ride.  Thank you.”

Hameeda smiled.  “You’re welcome.  Who are your companions?”

“Three representatives from the Alphan Twins,” Piece said.  “They’re here to make the case for military support.”

“I see.”  Hameeda activated the holographic projector and displayed a starchart.  The Alphan Twins were close to Tokomak Prime, linked to the enemy stars by a single gravity point chain.  She was mildly surprised the dissidents had managed to escape.  The system had been enemy territory for so long that they probably no longer remembered being independent.  “I can’t make that decision.”

“I know.”  Piece studied the starchart with hungry eyes.  “But I figure that whoever’s in command of the fleet can.”

“Quite.”  Hameeda shot him a sharp look.  “Why do they think they can win?”

Piece gave her a grim smile.  “Technically, the system is owned and controlled - not ruled, controlled - by the Tokomak.  Practically, the vast majority of the population consists of their servitors, entire races they’ve enslaved and put to work for them.  They hate their masters with a passion ... hell, even the Galactics who live there hate their rulers.  The entire system has been a tinder box for centuries.  Really ... I’m not even sure the Tokomak are breaking even.  Oppression and repression costs.”

Hameeda laughed, then sobered.  “And they can’t reform because that would unleash forces that might destroy them.”

“Right now, I don’t think they can imagine having to reform.”  Piece shrugged.  “There was some hope that the new Empress would change things ... youth at the helm, they said, although the Empress is older than any living human.  But there’s a war on and ... I don’t expect things to change in a hurry, if they ever do.  They’ve already started slaughtering human slaves and cyborg soldiers.”

“Yeah.”  Hameeda had never met a cyborg, but she’d heard the stories.  The aliens had practically brain-burned them into monsters, unleashing them against their targets and then snapping the leash back as soon as the battle was over.  They’d been grotesque parodies of the worst humanity had to offer, practically revelling in atrocities that would have made Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden blanch.  “They really intend to destroy us, don’t they?”

“I think they won’t be happy until every last human is dead,” Piece said.  “They were offering rewards for anyone who turned in a human for the extermination chambers, big rewards.  I thought it might be better to leave before someone turned me in for the thirty pieces of silver.”

Hameeda allowed herself a moment of respect.  Piece had lived and worked within enemy reach.  If they’d known he was there, they could have taken him.  And then ... she knew herself to be brave, but it was easy to be brave when the worst thing that could happen was a quick and painless death.  Piece would have been brain-burned if he’d been caught, his mind destroyed by alien mental probes or his own implants.  She wasn’t entirely sure how seriously to take his claims - she knew he could be mistaken - but if he was right ... she sent a mental command to the drives, ordering them to increase speed.  The sooner they reached N-Gann, the better.

“They’ll do everything in their power to restore the status quo,” Piece said.  “I think their next target will be their allies, the Galactics.  Once they have all their ships online, once Earth is a blackened cinder and the Solar Union nothing more than space dust, they’ll turn on the Galactics.  They’ll crush them all, knock them back to pre-space levels; they’ll impose controls that will make Earth’s worst police state look like the Solar Union.  And I don’t want to know what they’ll do to the servitor races.  Genocide, perhaps.  They just can’t be trusted.”

“They’ll destroy their economy,” Hameeda protested.  “They couldn’t survive without cheap labour.”

“I imagine they’ll bring more and more automation online,” Piece said, darkly.  “It isn’t as if they don’t have the tech.  They just built their empire on slave labour because they needed scapegoats for the Galactics to sneer at.  And they could dispose of most of them without really upsetting their economy.  I dare say they’ve already started putting together plans for mass genocide.”

Hameeda didn’t want to think about it.  Slaughtering an entire race ... it was a crime on a scale so big that she couldn’t even begin to grasp it.  Hitler had killed well over six million people, directly or indirectly; the Tokomak would kill billions or trillions of people just to secure their position forever.  They’d bathe the entire galaxy in blood.  She couldn’t imagine they’d wipe out everyone - even they had their limits - but they could easily force the survivors to hide or flee for the Rim.  And the Tokomak would come after them ...

She shuddered.  “And then ... what?”

“I have no idea.”  Piece shrugged.  “They’ll probably go back to contemplating their own navels.  It isn’t as if they have the drive to succeed any longer.  Without the war, without the need to police tens of trillions of subjects, they might just start to decay again.  Or ... who knows?  Maybe they’ll change so much they’ll look back and realise they committed the worst set of crimes in the history of the entire galaxy.”

“Which won’t be any consolation to the souls of the dead,” Hameeda said, more sharply than she’d intended.  “How could they even begin to atone for such a crime?”

She stared down at her hands.  Humans didn’t live that long, not compared to the Galactics.  The humans who were responsible for ordering and carrying out an endless stream of atrocities were dead.  There was nothing to be gained by punishing their descendants.  But the Tokomak were practically immortal.  Their children, a hundred thousand years in the future, might start to ask their elders and betters why they’d committed such crimes.  And what answer could their elders give?  They’d have none.

No, she corrected herself.  They’d tell their children that they had a choice between committing genocide and being the victims of genocide.  And they’d rewrite the history books to make that true.

She shook her head.  “We’ll be at N-Gann within the week,” she said.  “You can tell Admiral Stuart your story.  She’ll decide what to do about it.”

“A week?”  Piece looked surprised.  “How fast is this ship?”

“Classified,” Hameeda said.  She snorted.  Given a starchart, Piece could make an excellent guess at the LinkShip’s speed.  Admiral Stuart would probably tell him to keep his guesses to himself.  The Galactics hadn’t realised - yet - that there were ways to coax more speed out of a stardrive, if one removed the safety interlocks.  If she was lucky, they never would.  “And keep that to yourself, please.”

“My lips are sealed,” Piece assured her.  “But you do realise, don’t you, that my companions will notice?”

“Yeah.”  Hameeda shrugged.  “I think that will be the admiral’s problem.”

She finished her drink and placed the mug in the washer.  “I’ve had the servos make up a bed for you, in the spare room,” she said.  It was designed to be reconfigured into anything from a secondary bedroom to an emergency cargo hold.  “But you can go back into stasis if you like.”

“I have a report to write, if you’ll give me access to a terminal,” Piece said.  “And I could do with some decompression.”

“There’s a full-scale entertainment suite down the corridor,” Hameeda said.  “Feel free to use it, however you like.”

“A holodeck?”  Piece blinked in surprise.  “What sort of ship is this?”

“Classified,” Hameeda said, dryly.  “Speaking of which, don’t try to access the datacore directly.  It’ll take any unauthorised access as a hacking attempt and respond violently.  You really don’t want to have it pushing back at you.”

“I know the rules,” Piece said.  “And I wouldn’t dream of hacking a datacore when the ship was in flight.”

“You might spend the rest of your life in a detention cell, assuming you survived the experience,” Hameeda warned.  She had no reason to think Piece would be so stupid, but she’d known enough operatives to realise the danger.  Better to warn him off now than spend hours, afterwards, scraping his brains off the deck.  “Just use the standard user interface and everything will be fine.”

“Understood.”  Piece gave her a mischievous smile.  “How many people are on this ship?”

“Classified,” Hameeda said.  “Realistically speaking, you won’t see anyone else until we reach N-Gann.”

And you can draw whatever conclusions you like from that, she added, silently.  She didn’t really want to admit she was the only crewmember, although Piece might already have deduced it for himself.  You’ll be off this ship in a week or so anyway.

She stood.  “I’ll show you to your cabin,” she said.  “And you can write your report while we’re in transit.”

“Thanks,” Piece said.  “I’m very glad you came by.”

Hameeda nodded, then led him down the corridor to the spare room.  The servos had done a good job, hastily installing everything from a simple bed to a tiny washroom.  It was smaller than her cabin, but still larger than the average living compartment on a cruiser.  There was just enough room to swing a cat.  Piece glanced into the washroom and whistled, appreciatively.  Hameeda concealed her amusement with an effort.  After spending so long in alien environments, using washrooms designed for all kinds of alien races, even a simple shower and toilet designed specifically for humans looked like the height of luxury.  She allowed her eyes to wander up and down his back, noting the muscles and the signs of a stressful life.  She’d heard stories about deep-cover agents.  Some of them went so far as to disguise themselves as aliens.  Her lips quirked at the thought.  It couldn’t be easy.  Who knew what would happen if the aliens caught a fake?

The Tokomak would probably be horrified, she mused.  It was possible, in theory, to change race through nanotech.  It wouldn’t be easy, nothing like as easy as gender or skin colour, but it could be done.  How would they justify their supremacy if everyone could be a Tokomak?

“There’s no regular routine on this ship,” she told him, putting the thought aside for later consideration.  “If you want something to eat or drink, just go to the gallery and ask the processors.  Ditto for clothes and supplies.  Or use the onboard communications network to call me. Don’t try to explore.  This whole ship is ...”

“Classified,” Piece said, quickly.  “I do know the score.”

“I know,” Hameeda said.  They shared a smile.  “We’ll be at N-Gann very soon.”

“I was expecting the trip to take another month, at least.”  Piece shrugged.  “There were rumours of chokepoints being closed, of entire fleets going missing ... right now, a week sounds like a miracle.  We can be there and back before they notice we’re gone.”

“I hope you’re right,” Hameeda said.  “And that the Admiral listens to you.”

And that this doesn’t get a lot of innocent people killed for nothing, her thoughts added.  The Tokomak won’t hesitate to crack down hard if they get even a sniff of rebellion.

Chapter Six

“An interesting report,” Hoshiko said, once Samuel Piece and his allies had been shown out of her ready room.  “What do you make of it, Grandpa?”

Steve Stuart sat up from where he’d been half-lying on the sofa.  “I think we should treat it with extreme caution,” he said.  “I also think you’re the one who has to make the final call.”

“Gee, thanks,” Hoshiko said, dryly.  “As if I didn’t already know that.”

“Good thing I reminded you, then,” Steve said.  He grinned at her, resting his hands on his knees.  “I suppose the real question, therefore, is if we should try to take advantage of it or not.”

Hoshiko scowled.  She’d listened, very carefully, to the alien pitch.  The dissidents believed they could rise against the Tokomak, taking and holding their worlds - their entire binary star system - long enough for her fleet to come to the rescue.  Indeed, with a little help, their position might become practically impregnable.  But, at the same time, it would disrupt her plans if she sent aid to the Alphan Twins ... and, if she failed to get help to the aliens in time, the Tokomak would slaughter them.  And yet ...

She allowed her scowl to deepen as she considered the possibilities.  A rebellion on the Twins, combined with one prong of her fleet moving towards the Twins, would pose a threat the Tokomak could not afford to ignore.  They would have to send ships to the Twins, giving her a chance to stick a knife in their backs.  But the timing would be a nightmare and ... she shuddered, all too aware of how many people might die because she couldn’t get help to them in time.  The hell of it was that cold logic insisted she should send enough help to inspire a revolution, even if she couldn’t save it from being crushed.  Their deaths might buy her time to win the war.

And lose my soul, she reflected.  She knew she might have to launch a planetary bombardment, if human worlds were scorched clean of life by the aliens, but ... she wanted to postpone that decision as long as possible.  It was inhuman to consider mass slaughter as a viable military tactic.  What would it cost us, in the long run, if we encouraged the dissidents to rise and then left them to die?

“You have several options,” Steve said.  “You can send help, but encourage them to put off the rebellion until our ships actually enter the system.  This lets us make use of the uprising, without running the risk of watching helplessly as they get slaughtered.  You can send help and encourage them to rise now, which will distract the enemy at the price of getting untold millions of people killed.  Or you can do nothing, aware that the dissidents might rise at any moment anyway ...”

Hoshiko glared at him.  “Do you have anything useful to say?”

“Yes.”  Steve met her eyes, earnestly.  “There’s no perfect answer.  Not here.  And you may not be in control of events anyway.  War is a democracy ...”

“And the enemy always gets a vote,” Hoshiko finished.  “And not just the enemy, either.  Our prospective friends and allies always get a vote too.”

She sat back at her desk, silently running through the calculations.  It would take roughly a month, according to the analysts, to get a sizable force to the Twins.  That hadn’t been a problem a day ago, when there had been no reason to think there was a time limit.  Indeed, she’d planned for Force One to take its time.  The Tokomak wouldn’t be drawn out of place if they didn’t have time to notice the advancing fleet and take countermeasures.  She’d planned to do everything short of ringing up the enemy commander and personally telling him she was on the way.  But now ...

“It’s never easy to make such a call,” Steve said.  “You should start by giving up any thought of controlling what’s to come.”

Hoshiko gave him a sharp look.  “What do you mean?”

“I had to work with ... allies ... in Afghanistan,” Steve said.  “Our commanders, who were literally on the other side of the world, thought our allies were bought and paid for.  They thought they’d do as they were told.  They couldn’t have been more wrong.  The allies had their own interests, their own reasons for joining us ... if things changed, if we looked like bad allies or losers, they’d change sides in a heartbeat.  It was maddening, but ... to us, it was appalling.  To them, it made a great deal of sense.”

“How so?”  Hoshiko cocked an eyebrow.  “Weren’t they like you?”

Steve shrugged.  “An Afghan warlord was ... still is, unfortunately ... a big man because he has a band of fighters under his control.  If they died, his power died with them.  He didn’t want to send them into intense battles because it might cost him everything.  There wasn’t any sort of bribe we could offer that would compete with self-interest.  And then ... we were supposed to turn a blind eye to their conduct, even when it reflected badly on us.  We had to ignore filthy fucking paedophiles because it was politically incorrect to draw attention to it, which gave our enemies a field day ...”

He shook his head, controlling his anger with a visible effort.  “You have to bear in mind that their interests and yours won’t always align.  The good news is that they know what the Tokomak will do, when - if - they lose the war.  That gives them an incentive to stick with you.  The bad news is that you can’t command them and, if you try, that will harden them against you too.  They may jump at any point and ... well, you might get the blame for not saving them.”

“Fuck,” Hoshiko said.  Her people were an understanding people - Solarians knew it took time for messages to move from star to star, even without an alien blockade - but there were limits.  She had political enemies back home, including - ironically - people who wanted to curry favour with her family.  It wouldn’t get them anywhere, but ... it wouldn’t matter.  “We might as well help them, then.  But we’ll have to make it clear that we can’t rush to their aid.”

“Unless you want to throw Plan Wellington out the airlock,” Steve agreed.  “And gamble everything on Plan Nimitz.”

Hoshiko shook her head.  She’d seen the simulations.  Nothing could be taken for granted, of course, but ... the bad guys won more often than they lost.  It wasn’t very reassuring.  She tried to tell herself that the simulations were based on educated guesswork, but ... she shook her head.  It would be grossly irresponsible to bet everything on one throw of the dice.  They’d have to go with Plan Wellington.

And if they rise ahead of time, they’ll die, she thought.  And the rebels might die before we even know they need help.

Her expression darkened.  She’d reviewed the files on the Twins, hoping they’d help her make up her mind.  From one point of view, the planned uprising would be almost effortless.  From another, the uprising would be crushed before it ever became a major threat.  She could see the logic ... both sets of logic.  Personally, she suspected the reality would be somewhere in the middle.  The planetary administration might be riddled with holes, with all kinds of gaps in their security, but that didn’t mean they could all be exploited at the same time.  The KISS principle still applied.  There were just too many things that could go wrong.

“Samuel Piece wanted an SF team to accompany him,” she mused.  “I’ll ask the marines to recommend a good officer.”

“One who has no problem with aliens,” Steve reminded her.  “He’ll have to treat with them as equals.”

Hoshiko snorted.  The oldsters really did have problems with aliens, although she wasn’t sure if they stemmed from the Bombardment of Earth or a simple awareness that they were no longer alone in the universe.  Humanity’s first encounter with alien life - the first recorded encounter - had been traumatic, but hardly as bad as some others.  Her generation didn’t have anything like so many hang-ups.  Aliens were people.  Different people, to be sure, with values that were very ... well, alien, but people nonetheless.  Outside Earth, and some of the more isolated Cantons, outright racism was almost unknown.

“It won’t be a problem,” she assured him.

“I hope not,” Steve said.  “We sometimes came across as overbearing assholes and we had the advantage of dealing with fellow humans.”

“No wonder you could never win those pointless wars,” Hoshiko said, sweetly.  “Why were you fighting them with one hand tied behind your back anyway?”

Steve gave her a warning look.  “Back then, our ... government” - the word was a curse - “was dominated by hereditary idiots, bureaucrats and people who believed that the only way to win wars was through politically-correct PR.  They thought things could be perfect and when they weren’t, which was inevitable, they blamed the people on the ground.  And the hell of it was that the vast majority of the voters would have understood if their leaders had been open and honest about it.  There’s no such thing as perfection and trying to be perfect was worse than useless.”

He smiled.  “That’s why I built the Solar Union to ensure that people with power had actual experience and responsibility.  That’s what made it work.”

“And we’re outgrowing you,” Hoshiko said.

“It happens.”  Steve sat back on the sofa.  “Kids grow up, even though parents like to pretend otherwise.  And then they either learn from their parents or repeat their mistakes.”

He sighed.  “I’d like to go myself,” he said.  “And I do have a ship.”

“I can’t let you,” Hoshiko said.  “And I think you know it.”

She winced at his expression, steeling herself to resist.  She had no doubt her grandfather could accomplish the task - and he had no fear of aliens - but she was all too aware of the dangers of him falling into enemy hands.  The Tokomak didn’t know many humans - she had the nasty feeling that she was one of the humans they knew personally - but her grandfather had to be right on top of the list of humans they wanted to kill.  There was literally no one else who had brought so much change to the galaxy in less than a century.  She smiled, rather humourlessly.  His only competitors for the title of ‘most influential person in galactic history’ were Tokomak.  It was just something else for them to take personally.

“I understand,” Steve said.  “Do I get to accompany the fleet, at least?”

“Yeah.”  Hoshiko made a mental note to insist he stayed with her.  Someone else might be too impressed by him and allow his reputation to override her common sense.  “I’d be honoured to have you.”

Steve stood.  “I’ll transfer a handful of my possessions to the ship, then,” he said.  “And thank you.”

Hoshiko watched him go, wondering if she’d made a mistake.  She didn’t think he’d seek to undermine her command - he’d been very good about keeping his mouth shut when someone else was in the compartment, saving his advice for when they were alone - but she didn’t want him to go into danger.  And yet ... he looked so young, no older than herself.  It was hard to reconcile her awareness that he was in his second century with his appearance.  He looked the sort of person she’d have no qualms about sending into danger.

We’re all going into danger, she thought, as she altered the display.  Any of our ships could be hit and destroyed, even this one.

She smiled, coldly, as the holographic fleet appeared in front of her, surrounded by a small galaxy of tactical icons.  Her crews had worked like demons over the last week, hastily preparing both formations for deployment.  They’d been some confusion over some of her orders, made worse by the simple fact she couldn’t explain the reasoning behind them, but overall ... they were well on their way to meeting the deadline.  The aliens crewing their ships - a ragged fleet composed of captured warships and refitted freighters -  were less ready, but it wouldn’t matter.  She’d planned operations on the assumption she and her crews would be fighting alone.  

Her smile grew wider as she worked her way through the reports.  A couple of her commanders looked to have played games with the readiness reports - she made a mental note to read them the riot act later - but otherwise, the fleet was about ready to go.  The real problem lay in holding the system while the majority of the fleet was heading deeper into enemy space.  If the Tokomak realised the system was suddenly undefended, who knew what they’d do?  N-Gann wasn’t that important, particularly now she’d rigged the fabricators to blow if there was a chance of them falling back into enemy hands, but a powerful enemy fleet could easily block Force One’s line of retreat if it took control of the gravity point.  And they wouldn’t have to take the planet itself to be a major headache.  Blocking communications between the two prongs would be more than enough.

And there really are too many things that can go wrong, Hoshiko thought.  She understood the illusion of control better than she cared to admit, but it wasn’t one she could allow herself.  The enemy could really screw things up if she ordered her officers to wait for orders before counterattacking.  And if we lose contact ...

She snorted.  The researchers had been promising a viable FTL communicator for decades.  Literally.  She wouldn’t be surprised to discover that Tokomak researchers had been promising the same for centuries.  Whoever cracked FTL communications would have a colossal advantage over everyone else, at least as long as it lasted.  But she would have to fight her battles without it ... knowing, all too well, that the enemy’s communication loop was shorter than hers.  It was vaguely possible they’d be able to take advantage of the enemy’s lines of communication, but ... she dismissed the thought.  That was little more than whistling in the dark.  Maybe it would work.  Once.  She couldn’t rely on it.

We’ll have to improvise, she thought. Thankfully, she was good at improvising combat tactics while under fire.  The Tokomak would be hampered by their weaknesses ... although she was grimly aware that they were learning too.  Let’s hope we can keep our edge until the war is over.

She opened her log and started to write out a set of formal orders for Admiral Teller.  He’d command Force One.  There were more aggressive officers, but ... for once, she wanted someone who wouldn’t always have an eye open for a chance to push the offensive.  The enemy would need time to realise what was heading in their direction and do something about it.  She hoped they’d take the bait.  The hell of it, she told herself, was that a rebellion would make the bait almost irresistible.  And yet, if the rebellion failed ...

There’s nothing you can do about it, she told herself, firmly.  All you can do is stack the deck as much as possible and hope for the best, while preparing for the worst.

Her terminal bleeped.  “Admiral, I’ve assigned Captain Douglas to your operation,” General Edward Romford said.  “He’s on his way now.”

“Have him report to me when he arrives,” Hoshiko ordered.  Captain Douglas would have as much freedom as she could give him, even to the point of allowing him to draw whatever he needed from the fleet’s supplies.  She was grimly aware she might be sending him to his death.  The thought had never bothered her before, but ... she shook her head.  She’d never sent someone into a possible trap, knowing they were practically naked and defenceless.  But she couldn’t see any way to avoid it.  “I’ll brief him personally.”

“He did good work planetside,” Romford assured her.  “And he played a major role in setting up the provisional government.”

“I know.”  Hoshiko rather suspected the provisional government wouldn’t last, but ... she wouldn’t mind, as long as it lasted just long enough.  “This mission is going to be harder.”

“I’ll make time for him and his squad to meet their romantic partners, then,” Romford joked.  “A shame there’s no real shore leave ...”

Hoshiko laughed.  N-Gann had quite a few shore leave facilities, but most of them had been destroyed in the fighting.  The remainder hadn’t been configured for humans.  The Galactics were depressingly boring, by human standards.  They didn’t drink, they didn’t eat to excess, they didn’t watch movies or have sex or ... they didn’t even have porn.  It reminded her of a joke about a man who lived a healthy - and boring - life.  Why would he want to live for so long?

“We’ll just have to make our own entertainment,” she said, dryly.  It wasn’t as if they didn’t have a few distractions.  Senior officers would turn a blind eye, as long as it didn’t impede operational efficiency.  “And we can play when the war is over.”

Chapter Seven

Captain Martin Luther Douglas, Special Forces Recon, started awake as the shuttle moved into teleport range of SUS Defiant.  He’d been too keyed up to sleep properly, ever since he’d received orders to hand his duties over to his XO and report to Defiant as soon as humanly possible.  In his experience, abrupt orders only came when he was in deep shit, when he was getting a new mission, or both.  And he hadn’t done anything that would deserve a bollocking from General Romford himself as far as he knew.

He rubbed his eyes, feeling bone-weary.  He didn’t mind action - he thrived on it - but the last week had been boring beyond words.  He’d patrolled N-Gann, he’d helped to sort out disputes between different alien races that seemed to believe their independence would never be threatened again .... he’d made a difference, he thought, even though there was no way the provisional government could keep the lid on forever.  N-Gann would have to hang together or hang separately and he had no idea which they’d choose.  He almost wished he were back on Apsidal.  The insurgency had been hell, but at least it hadn’t been boring.

The intercom bleeped.  “Teleport in one minute,” it said.  The voice was flat, atonal.  “Prepare for transport.”

Martin stood, grabbing his knapsack and pulling it on as the countdown headed remorselessly towards zero.  He didn’t have much with him, save for his service pistol, ammunition and terminal.  Everything else could be found on the ship, if he was going to be posted there.  He hoped not, even though Yolanda was on the ship.  Shipboard duty was often boring.  He’d earned his place in Special Forces Recon.  He deserved to be pitting himself against the very best the enemy had to offer.

The shuttle’s interior dissolved into blinding light.  Martin resisted the urge to close his eyes, feeling a very primal fear as the light coalesced into a teleport bay.  The younger generation of Solarians believed the teleport was normal, that it was safer than flying on a jumbo jet or riding a bus to school, but Martin had never believed it.  He knew just how easy it was to jam, or scramble, a teleport signal.  There were no shortage of horror stories about what happened when humans were accidentally merged with flies.  The fact the stories were impossible had never stopped them from creeping him out.

“Martin!”  Yolanda was standing by the control panel, smiling.  “It’s good to see you again.”

Martin checked that his body was intact - a twitch he’d never managed to suppress - before stepping off the pad and hurrying towards her.  Yolanda looked strange, by groundpounder standards.  The part of her that was still firmly rooted on Earth wondered at her appearance, finding it hard to place her.  The rest of him, the part that had seen all kinds of humans since leaving Earth behind, found it impossible to care.  He wrapped his arms around her, enjoying the kiss.  It was more than he’d had for weeks.

“I guess I’m not in trouble, then,” he said, as he pulled back.  “You wouldn’t have greeted me otherwise ...”

“I don’t know,” Yolanda said.  She drew back, slightly, her lips twisting as if she wasn’t sure of herself.  “You might not be in trouble, but in trouble ... if you see what I mean.”

“I don’t know what that means, but it sounds bad.”  Martin gave her another kiss, then let go of her.  “The Admiral wants to see me personally?”

“I’m afraid so,” Yolanda said.  “And she was very close-lipped about what she wanted from you.”

Martin frowned as she led him through the corridors.  His orders normally came from General Romford or one of his staffers.  It was a severe breach of military etiquette for Admiral Stuart to summon him directly, certainly not without laying the groundwork by having him assigned to her first.  It wasn’t quite as bad as issuing orders to the ship’s crew directly, without clearing them with the captain, but it was still pretty bad.  And the Admiral had gone and done it.  Either General Rumford was fuming now or ... or he’d recommended Martin personally.  And that meant ...?

He put the thought out of his mind as they reached the admiral’s hatch.  They’d come the long way around, without going through Officer Country or the CIC.  He wondered if that was a good sign.  There was little point in secrecy, as far as he knew.  The system itself might be riddled with spies - they’d uncovered plenty of evidence that the Galactics were still keeping the system under surveillance - but Defiant was a human ship.  There was no reason to believe they had a rat onboard.

Which doesn’t mean there isn’t one, he reminded himself.  The Galactics could afford to offer entire star systems in bribes, if they thought to do it.

Yolanda glanced at him.  “Good luck.”

Martin opened his mouth, then closed it firmly as the hatch slid open.  He stepped inside, torn between relief and fear that Yolanda was clearly not invited.  Relief, because she wouldn’t have to witness whatever it was; fear, because whatever was happening was clearly very secret.  And that meant ... he straightened to attention and saluted as he saw the admiral sitting behind her desk.  She didn’t waste time with power games.  She returned the salute, then motioned him to take a chair.  Martin sat, gingerly.  This was not going to be good.

Admiral Stuart studied him, carefully.  Martin studied her back, noting her tinted skin, almond eyes and very dark hair.  She reminded him a little of Yolanda, although she was clearly a decade or two older.  But then, it was hard to tell.  Yolanda had maintained an almost girlish appearance for as long as he’d known her, for as long as she’d had access to nanotech; Admiral Stuart clearly saw advantage in appearing a little more mature.  Martin understood, better than he cared to admit.  He’d grown up in a world where people took one look at the colour of his skin and crossed the road, rather than meet his eye.  The Solar Union had long since outgrown human-on-human racism.  There were alien races to hate now.

“I heard good things about you, on Apsidal and N-Gann,” Admiral Stuart said.  Her voice was clipped, very precise.  And yet, there was a faint hint of the American South in her accent.  “You worked well with the various rebel and resistance groups.  They were very pleased with you.”

“We had to work together or die, Admiral,” Martin said.  “I did what anyone would have done, in my place.”

“Perhaps,” Admiral Stuart said.  “But the fact of the matter is that you did very well.”

She keyed her terminal.  A holographic image - a man, wearing a shapeless tunic - appeared in front of them.  “Listen to this, carefully.  I’ll want your opinion afterwards.”

Martin leaned forward as the man - a tagline identified him as Samuel Piece - spoke rapidly, but with consummate force.  He didn’t know anything about the worlds he talked about - he’d have to look them up, the moment he got out of the office - but the logic was unmistakable.  A revolution in the enemy rear might just knock them off their high horse, once and for all.  Martin doubted it would be that simple - Apsidal’s resistance movements hadn’t worked together very well - but it would certainly cause problems for the enemy.  And who knew?  A tiny little virus could bring a grown man to his knees ...

The recording came to an end.  “Your thoughts?”

“I don’t know anything about the Twins,” Martin said.  He’d learnt the hard way to admit ignorance, rather than letting people think he knew what they were talking about.  “But if he’s right, the rebels would be in a good place to launch an uprising.”

“Perhaps.”  Admiral Stuart dismissed the recording with a flick of her hand.  “The real question, right now, is are you prepared to head into enemy space and support an uprising?”

Martin frowned.  “On what timescale?”

“A month, perhaps two months,” Admiral Stuart said.  “Ideally, your uprising would start six weeks from today.”

“Tricky,” Martin said.  “It isn’t easy to time such an operation.”

“So I’ve been told.”  Admiral Stuart didn’t sound angry, merely amused.  “Do you think you could provide support ...?”

“Yes and no.”  Martin met her eyes.  “I could take a team there and provide support, but - on the scale of such an operation - the support would be very minimal indeed.  There is no way we could make that much of a dent in enemy operations.  The vast majority of the operation would have to be carried out by the rebels themselves.”

“But you would be a sign of our commitment,” Admiral Stuart mused.  She met his eyes.  “The blunt truth is that I couldn’t guarantee punching fleet support through to you in time to keep the enemy from reoccupying the orbitals. At best, you’d be fighting a full-scale insurgency.  At worst, they’d nuke the entire planet and kill everyone, including you.  I might not be able to extract you or anyone.”

She let out a long breath.  “It seems fairly clear that they’re planning to rise, with or without us,” she added.  “Our help may tip the balance in their favour.  But if we cannot get through to the Twins in time ...”

“We all die,” Martin said.  “Admiral, I understand the risks.”

He took a long breath, feeling his heart start to pound.  He had no illusions about himself.  He’d been warned, time and time again, that recon troopers were often marked as expendable.  The missions had sounded exciting, when he’d sought new challenges.  Now ... it came home to him, violently, that he might be out on a limb, with someone behind him merrily sawing it off.  Admiral Stuart would do everything in her power to get to him in time - she didn’t have a reputation for abandoning people - but it might not be enough.  And he might never go home.

“I’m glad you do,” Admiral Stuart said, sympathetically.  She sat back in her chair.  “You can take an entire recon platoon with you.  Under the circumstances” - her lips thinned, as if she’d bitten into something nasty - “you can have complete freedom in planning the operation.  If you want to borrow the LinkShip to get there, you can ask.  Just let me know before I start making other plans that involve it.”

Martin nodded.  He’d been briefed on the LinkShip project.  Most of the details had been classified, of course, but he knew the ship could pass through a gravity point without being detected.  It would have been a war-winner, before the Tokomak invented stardrive.  Now, it was still one hell of an advantage ... if the enemy hadn’t realised what the humans had learnt to do.  The last set of reports he’d read insisted the enemy had laid so many mines on the far side of the gravity point that someone could probably walk on them.

“Agent Piece is waiting for you in Briefing Room C,” Admiral Stuart continued.  “I expect you to remember that walls have ears, even here.  If they figure out what you’re doing, you’ll be in trouble.”

“I’ll be dead,” Martin corrected.  He rose and saluted.  “Thank you, Admiral.”

Yolanda was waiting outside, looking as pale as always.  “You alright?”

“In the words of Edmund Blackadder, another tempting opportunity to commit suicide beckons,” Martin said.  The quote would normally have made her smile.  This time, she looked as if she was already weeping by his grave.  He shuddered.  If he died this time, there wouldn’t be enough of him left to pick up with a pair of tweezers.  “I have a meeting in Briefing Room C.”

“Good luck,” Yolanda said.  “I’ll take you there.”

She led him through empty corridors and through a hatch that was not only locked but guarded by two marines.  Martin wondered, dryly, if the admiral wanted to draw attention to Agent Piece or if she simply didn’t trust him.  Or maybe she just wanted to make damn sure that no one outside the handful of people in the know laid eyes on him.  People would talk, unfortunately.  And no one really knew what piece of information would allow the enemy to put the whole picture together.  

“I’ll see you tonight,” Yolanda said, as the hatch opened.  “Call me when you’re done.”

Martin nodded and stepped into the compartment.  Agent Piece sat at a table, studying a file report.  He rose as Martin entered, looking him up and down with practiced ease.  Decent training, Martin noted absently.  Piece looked sloppy, as if he was nothing more than a poser, but there was something about his movements that suggested his sloppiness was an act.  Martin wondered if the aliens noticed  - and, if they did notice, if they cared.  They found human body language as hard to read as humans found theirs.  He doubted there were many human-specific xenospecialists among the Tokomak.

“Agent,” he said.  “I’m Captain Douglas.”

“Captain,” Piece said.  “Or should it be Colonel, here?”

“Here, it doesn’t matter.”  Martin took a seat.  “I heard the lecture you gave the admiral.  I want to hear it again, from you.”

Piece didn’t look surprised at the request.  Instead, he sat down and calmly recited the entire speech for a second time.  Martin formulated questions and interrupted to ask them, giving Piece as little time as possible to think of answers.  It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Piece was who he claimed to be - by now, Admiral Stuart and General Romford would have run his ID through the wringer - so much as he wanted to make sure he knew everything he could.  He’d run into trouble, during exercises, by assuming he knew more than he did.  If he did that during a real mission, he’d be dead and his team along with him.

“A small team isn’t going to make that much of a difference,” he said, finally.  Piece seemed to have an answer for everything.  Martin was curious to see how he’d answer that.  “I know the movies make us into superhumans, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound and smash entire battleships with a single punch, but reality is rarely that obliging.”

“No,” Piece agreed.  “On one hand, your team will be a sign to the dissidents that they’re not alone.  And, on the other, your team may come in handy.”

“Really.”  Martin met his eyes.  “And what’s to stop the Galactic Overlords from simply vaporising every last planet in the system?  Or merely scorching them clean of life?”

“The Twins are a vitally important part of the galactic economy,” Piece said, evenly.  “Their population is one of the most highly-trained and educated workforces in the core, the second or third largest in the galaxy.  In addition, they are owned - owned outright - by the combines, the enemy’s interstellar corporations.  Their owners would not be pleased if their military saved the system by destroying it.  The dissidents are effectively using themselves as human shields.”

“I’m sure there’s a flaw in that logic somewhere,” Martin said.  It was hard to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.  “Will they be pointing guns at their own heads and threatening to shoot if the Tokomak don’t go away?”

“No.”  There was a faint hint of irritation in his voice.  “The point is, Captain, that they are limited in how they can react.  If they blow up the entire system, they will blow up a sizable chunk of their own economy with it.  And the knock-on effects will be serious.  It will set their fleet refitting and mobilisation programs back years.  They will have to try and take the system back without destroying it.”

Martin considered it.  “And a long-term insurgency will render the system useless anyway.”

“Yes,” Piece said.

“How can you be so cold?”  Martin cocked his head.  “How many of your allies are going to die when the fighting starts?”

Piece’s face sagged.  “It wasn’t my plan, Captain.  They’re going to do it, with or without us.  They understand the risks, they understand what’s at stake, but ... they want to die on their feet rather than live on their knees.  Because that’s what they’re facing, right now.  A system that is blatantly racist, that will not grant even the slightest glimmer of respect to the most useful workers ... workers who could make the difference between saving the galactic economy and letting it continue to stagnate.  They’re desperate.  They’re sick of living with the Sword of Damocles constantly hanging over their heads.  They want to put an end to it.”

Martin frowned.  “Even if it costs them everything?”

“Even so.”  Piece looked at the table. “I won’t pretend any of this is good, Captain.  I won’t pretend that millions of people - aliens, but still people - aren’t about to die.  All we can do is take advantage of it.”

“Right.”  Martin sat down.  “How do you plan to get there?”

“I’ve asked for a freighter to be modified for us,” Piece said.  “Assuming the codes still work, and they should, we shouldn’t have any trouble getting there within three weeks.  If they don’t” - he smiled, coldly - “things may become slightly problematic.”

“Slightly,” Martin repeated.  A freighter couldn’t run or fight.  If they ran into pirates, let alone an enemy warship, they’d be dead.  “There are other options.”

“So I’ve been told,” Piece said.  “But we also need to take supplies.  I’ve had a bit of an idea.”

Martin laughed.  “Just a bit?”

“Just a bit,” Piece said.  He keyed his datapad, bringing up a holographic display.  “But I was hoping you could help me flesh it out.”

“As you wish,” Martin said.  He’d see what the plan was before he either started to improve it or vetoed it.  “And then I’ll have to call the rest of the team.”

Chapter Eight

Martin couldn’t sleep.

He lay next to Yolanda, feeling her curled against him.  The last week had been hectic, starting with a detailed assessment of the captured databanks - he’d never been so glad the Tokomak were obsessive bureaucrats who listed everything - and continuing with training, preparing the modified freighter and readying the team for the mission.  It was good to know that he could requisition anything he wanted, and he’d taken shameless advantage of it to make sure the team had everything it needed, but it wasn’t enough.  He knew he was going into danger.  And he knew there was a very good chance he’d die, along with the rest of the team, thousands of light years from home.

Yolanda shifted against him, pressing against his warmth.  Martin was tempted to wake her, to make love one final time before the alarm rang and he had to leave, but he resisted.  Yolanda had a job to do too.  And besides, they’d spent most of the evening making love.  He smiled at the memory, then sobered.  Who would have thought a black kid from whatever remained of the once-great United States of America would end up so far from home, fighting to defend the entire human race?  He felt a pang of guilt for everyone he’d left behind, mingled with the grim awareness that they too could have left if they’d worked up the nerve.  It was hard to leave everything behind, he admitted in the privacy of his own mind.  He knew he wouldn’t have left if he hadn’t been certain he’d been on the short road to an early death.  And yet, it had been harder than he’d expected to start the first leg on the journey to space.

He closed his eyes, silently contemplating all the things that could go wrong.  They’d done their best to plan for everything, but they knew - all too well - that the slightest mistake could end in disaster.  No plan ever survived contact with the enemy.  The Tokomak were stodgy and unimaginative, but that didn’t make them stupid.  And, right now, they had to be cracking down hard right across their territory.  An invading fleet was bad enough, but a string of uprisings had to be worse.  If even a relative handful of their worlds exploded into rebellion, their empire was screwed.  It would take so long to put down the revolts that humanity would have all the time it needed to build a whole new fleet and deploy weapons right out of the fertile dream of a science-fiction author.  His lips quirked at the thought.  Someone had honestly proposed building a Death Star.  It was technically possible, just incredibly expensive.  And vulnerable to a single enemy gunboat.

And we could build a million cruisers for the resources wasted in a single Death Star, he thought, dryly.  He’d taken a course on grand concepts and practical realities during OCS, where his instructors had pointed out the flaws in a hundred brilliant ideas that - somehow - never worked so well in the field.  And the cruisers would probably be more useful.

Yolanda stirred, her hand stroking his chest.  Martin opened his eyes and saw her looking at him, her dark eyes worried.  She knew everything, he guessed, although she wasn’t - technically - on the list of people who had a need-to-know.  Yolanda was Admiral Stuart’s tactical aide.  She’d probably done much of the legwork involved in getting Martin and his team the resources they needed.  And she wasn’t stupid.  She might not know the exact details, but she could probably put together a very accurate picture.  

“You’d better come back,” she said, as her hand slipped downwards.  “I don’t want to lose you.”

Martin nodded, although he knew there were no guarantees.  That had been true in the ghetto and it was true in deep space.  He’d learnt that the hard way.  The cold equations would always claim their due, whatever happened.  The slightest mistake - the slightest innocent mistake - could get people killed.  One could take every imaginable precaution and still wind up dead.  It didn’t bother him.  He’d lived on Earth.  The environment might be safer, by and large, but the people were not.  Solarians tended to be a more practical, and tolerant, breed.

He smiled as she clambered on top of him, pressing down.  His hands rose to her breasts, stroking them gently.  It had taken him longer than it should to realise the value of a single partner, one he knew - and knew him - intimately.  They moved together, building towards a climax.  He held her tightly as he came, pulling her down so they could kiss.  He wanted to stay with her.  He needed ... but he knew he had to go.  He glanced at the chronometer and swallowed a curse.  There were only a few minutes left until the alarm rang.

“When we get home, I think I ...”

Yolanda broke off.  She knew - they both knew - that it was bad luck to talk about the future.  There was no guarantee that either - or both - of them would survive.  Yolanda was on a cruiser, the most heavily-protected ship in the fleet, but a lucky hit might destroy the ship with all hands.  She might die ... they both might die.  Martin pressed his lips against her lightly, trying to say with his kisses what he couldn’t say with his mouth.  Afterwards, if there was an afterwards, they could have children.  They’d talked about it, more than once.  But the war had always got in the way.

The alarm rang.  Martin allowed himself a quick fantasy of drawing his pistol and shooting the alarm, then reached out and silenced it with a tap of his hand.  Yolanda rolled over, her pale skin glistening with sweat.  Martin wanted her - his body was urgently reminding him that it would be months, at least, before he saw her again - but he ignored it.  His team would make sarcastic remarks if he was late for deployment.  And he hated to think what Admiral Stuart would say to his lover.  Yolanda was the Admiral’s tactical aide.

He stood and walked into the shower, turning on the water.  Yolanda followed, pressing against him as he washed the sweat from their bodies.  He kissed her again, then dried himself and donned his tunic.  He thought he heard a sob from inside the washroom, but didn’t dare look.  Yolanda would never have forgiven him.  Instead, he checked his appearance in the mirror.  He looked like a soldier, a very dangerous man.  Any human would have spotted him at once.  Thankfully, the Tokomak weren’t human.  All humans looked alike to them.  Martin would have been annoyed if he hadn’t known humans had the same problem.  The Tokomak really did look alike.

Yolanda stepped out of the washroom, a towel wrapped around her body.  “You’d better go,” she said.  She’d never been good at dealing with partings.  “I’ll be here when you get back.”

“And I will,” Martin said, although he knew he could be wrong.  It wasn’t as if he was going to the shops for a carton of milk.  “You’d better be here when I come back.”

Yolanda smiled, wanly.  “I’ll be here,” she said.  “Goodbye.”

Martin turned, feeling like a heel as he walked out.  He’d be back ... he promised himself he’d be back.  His father had walked out on his mother shortly after she’d become pregnant, if she’d been telling the truth.  He didn’t know.  He would have liked to have known his father, even though cold logic told him his father hadn’t been a man to admire.  What sort of bastard walked out on a pregnant woman?  He shook his head, firmly.  If he had kids, he was damned if he was leaving them to grow up alone.  They’d have a father in their lives whether they liked it or not.

He reached the teleport compartment and spoke briefly to the operator, clearing a teleport path to Hoyden.  The alien freighter was far too close to Defiant for comfort, even if her presence was masked by sensor decoys and ECM fields.  He would have preferred to launch the operation from N-Gann itself, or even build up a data trail before altering course and heading for the Twins, but time was short.  Besides, he admitted sourly, the more systems they passed through, the greater the chance someone would ask awkward questions.  And if they did ...

“Captain,” Sergeant Butler said.  He was a thickly-built man with a strong accent Martin had never been able to place.  It was unusually thick, for someone who’d been born and raised in the Solar Union.  “Welcome onboard.”

Martin nodded, shortly.  “Are we ready to depart on schedule?”

“We’re just waiting for two men,” Butler said.  “Simmons is on his way.  Haw-Haw has been a little delayed.”

“We have time,” Martin said.  Haw-Haw - his real name was in the files, but Martin had never bothered to check - had a partner who’d been deployed to N-Gann.  “If he isn’t here in a couple of hours, though ...”

He shrugged as he stepped off the pad.  Hoyden had been designed by a committee for multispecies accommodation and it showed.  The interior felt oddly out of proportion, as if a child had put the ship together out of plastic bricks.  The hatches were alternatively too wide and too short.  He shook his head, reminding himself that they could hardly use a human-designed freighter for the mission.  That would definitely draw unwanted attention.  There’d even been reports of human-designed ships being unceremoniously blown out of space when they tried to pass through the gravity points.

And if they realise what we’re carrying, he thought glumly, we’re screwed.

“Piece and his companions are in their cabins,” Butler informed him.  “They’ve been quite cooperative.”

Martin nodded, although he did have his concerns.  He had nothing against aliens, but he had a great deal against untrained amateurs interfering with his operations.  Rumour had it that the Solar Marines had a very quiet ongoing operation on Earth, arming and training men who fought back against the madness engulfing the planet.  Martin would have hated that role, as much as he hated the men who’d thrown Earth into the gutter.  You just couldn’t trust amateurs to play their part.  They had hopes and dreams of their own.  They were always a two-edged sword.

And we have to rely on them, he thought.  There’s no other way to do it.

“Once the stragglers are onboard, take us to our planned position,” he ordered, putting the thought aside.  “The flag will tell us when to move.”

“Yes, sir,” Butler said.  “We’ll be ready.”

“And hope that we don’t draw fire from the wrong side,” Martin said.  Accidents happened - he knew accidents happened, despite their best efforts - but it would still be embarrassing to be killed by his own side.  A lone freighter, in a place where no freighter had any business being ... it was all too likely that someone would draw the wrong conclusions and throw a missile at him.  “That would be bad.”

“Yes, sir,” Butler said, with studied indifference.  “That would be very bad.”

***
“Can’t sleep?”

Hoshiko looked up, sharply.  Her grandfather was standing in the hatchway, his expression unreadable in the half-light.  She beckoned him into the room with a single motion, then returned her attention to the holographic display.  The fleet revolved around her, each and every ship ready for war.  They were as ready as they’d ever be.  They had to go soon or they’d start to degrade.  No military force could remain at readiness indefinitely, no matter what politicians or armchair admirals claimed.  And merely ramping up some of their sensors would hasten their demise.

“No.”  She tapped a switch, bringing the cabin lights up.  “I keep thinking about the operation.”

“And about how much relies on you?”  Steve smiled at her, his young face oddly contrasting with his old eyes.  “You wouldn’t be the first person to worry.”

“No.”  Hoshiko turned away from the display, trying not to think about the hundreds of ships under her command.  “I feel like Jellico.”

“The one man who could lose the war in a day, at Jutland,” Steve said.  He’d taught her military history.  “What about him?”

“I was happier playing Beatty,” Hoshiko admitted.  “Beatty could have lost every ship under his command and it wouldn’t have materially altered the balance of power.  Not enough to allow Germany to win, anyway.  Beatty could take chances Jellico couldn’t afford to risk.”

“Beatty also stabbed his commanding officer in the back, metaphorically speaking,” Steve pointed out.  He’d studied war for longer than she’d been alive.  “He claimed he could have delivered a decisive victory, if he’d been in command of the Grand Fleet.”

“It’s a lot easier to carp and criticise when you’re not the one with ultimate responsibility,” Hoshiko countered.  “Or the one who will be made a scapegoat if the battle is lost and the war lost with it.”

“And you are happy to criticise your superiors?”  Steve cocked an eyebrow.  “Do you think that’s good for morale?”

“It’s never been easy to give feedback without criticism,” Hoshiko said.  “Or of coming across as an armchair critic, even if one isn’t intending to put someone down.”

She smiled.  “And no commanding officer wants to hear his subordinates criticising her, even when she knows she needs it.”

“One should always bow down to tyrants,” Steve said.  It sounded like a quote.  “I speak as a tyrant, of course.”

Hoshiko lifted her eyebrows.  “Pardon?”

“Old joke,” Steve said.  “A king once asked his bards to explain the nature of courage to him.  One of them dared suggest that courage lay in resisting tyrannical demands from one’s monarch ... or something along those lines.  The king didn’t see the funny side.  Resistance is commendable as long as they’re not resisting you.”

“Oh.”  Hoshiko had to smile.  “I can see his point.”

She waved a hand at the display.  “How did you cope?  I mean ... when you realised that everything was resting on you?”

“It took me a long time to really grasp it,” Steve said.  He sounded pensive.  “You see, when I was a little boy ...”

“Back when dinosaurs ruled the Earth,” Hoshiko put in.

“That joke’s older than me,” Steve said.  “Back when I was a little boy, which was a long time after the dinosaurs died out, there were no aliens.  We were limited to a single world, which was both very small - thanks to the magic of radio and the internet - and very big.  It could take literally hours to fly around the globe.  There were no aliens.  There was no sense, in our collective mindset, that there was anything beyond the sky.  You really can’t grasp just how ignorant most people were, back then.  On one hand, our society depended on orbital satellites.   On the other, there were idiots who called the space program a waste of money and wanted to keep pouring cash into black holes instead.  We were very lucky it was the Horde that rediscovered Earth first, back then.  Someone more competent could have fucked us up with both hands tied behind their backs.

“I didn’t realise just how big our world had become, not at first.  I didn’t grasp the towering interstellar civilisation, not until ... not until I started trading myself.  I didn’t realise the scale of the challenge facing us until it was too late.  If I had, I might never have started.  I might have given up without even trying to face the challenge.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Hoshiko said.

“You grew up in the Solar Union,” Steve reminded her.  “All of this” - he waved a hand at the bulkhead - “is normal to you.  To us, it was an outside context problem.  A lot of people on Old Earth never really recovered from discovering that we weren’t alone in the universe.  They just couldn’t take it.”

Hoshiko frowned.  “Is there a point, Grandpa?”

“You’re not Jellico or Beatty,” Steve said.  “You’re not in the same position.  Yes, a great deal does rest on you.  But you have a good staff, good crewmen and good ships.  You can’t guarantee anything, of course, but you’ve done everything in your power to make sure you come out ahead.”

“If Jellico had lost, Britain would have been invaded,” Hoshiko said.  “Germany would have won the war.  It would have been a disaster.  But it wouldn’t have been the end of the human race.”

“No,” Steve agreed.  “But you never know.  Maybe things will change.  The Tokomak might change.  Or their servants might rise up against them.  Sometimes, all that is needed is proof that one’s tormentors are not invincible.  And you stopped a mighty fleet in its tracks.”

“Sure,” Hoshiko said, sardonically. “And maybe the horse will learn to sing.”

“It might,” Steve said.  “You never know.”

Hoshiko had to smile.  “Thanks for the distraction, Grandpa.”

Steve bowed.  “You’re welcome.”

“And I really should kick you off the ship,” Hoshiko pointed out.  “If you die here ...”

“I’m old enough to make that decision for myself,” Steve countered.  “And I started all this, a long time ago.  I should be there to see it end. I sometimes wonder, you know, what would have happened if I’d turned the ship over to the government.”

He shook his head.  “But you know what?  It doesn’t matter.  We play the cards we’re dealt and do our best to rig the odds in our favour.”

“Very profound, Grandpa,” Hoshiko said.  “Maybe I’ll have it engraved on my tombstone.”

“I want someone to write something sarcastic,” Steve said.  “But I fear they’ll go for something polite instead.”

He laughed, then sobered.  “Go get some sleep, young lady.  Mornings always come too soon.”

Chapter Nine

Commodore Piling was surprised, deep inside, that she’d been left in command of the system defences.  She was old - incredibly old, by human standards - and she really should have been removed, if only because she was too old to impress the new empress.  Piling had no combat experience, little diplomatic experience ... indeed, the simple fact she hadn’t been promoted earlier, before the coup, spoke volumes.  Perhaps the empress had too much to do to sack her personally, Piling thought, or perhaps she was simply rated as expendable.  It was what she would have done.

She sat in her command chair and surveyed the tactical display with a grim feeling of bitter dissatisfaction.  There was nothing particularly important about the Hellene System, save for the simple fact that it was part of a chain of gravity points leading from N-Gann to the Twins and through them to Tokomak Prime itself.  The handful of inhabited planets had been denied the investment that had been given to N-Gann, ensuring that they were poorly developed and their defences were minimal.  The planners had always assumed that N-Gann would cover the system, if they’d had the imagination to think that the system might ever be threatened at all.  It had probably never crossed their mind that N-Gann would fall to an outside force.

The gravity point pulsed in the centre of the display, mocking her.  Piling had done everything she could, from deploying thousands upon thousands of cheap mines to arming her freighters with missile pods in the hopes they might score a handful of hits before they were blown out of space, but she was grimly aware that her defences were flimsy.  N-Gann had been heavily defended and the fleet base had fallen ... intact, if some of the reports were to be believed.  Her eyes shifted to the handful of planets within the system, almost entirely inhabited by servitors and outright slaves, their contracts owned by the big combines.  She’d heard the rumblings of discontent, the growing awareness that their masters could be beaten.  It was only a matter of time before the system exploded ...

And the empress isn’t rushing support up the chain either, Piling thought.  She knew, intellectually, that the fleet had taken a beating, that thousands of ships had been lost, but she found it hard to believe.  She’d watched hundreds of thousands of ships making their way down the chain, a force so vast it seemed impossible to believe it could lose.  But it had lost and now ... she hated to admit it, but the empress was right.  She was expendable.  And it’s only a matter of time before we lose.

She turned her attention to the reports, but she couldn’t force herself to read them.  She’d risen in the ranks through a pathological obsession with bureaucracy, yet ...something was wrong.  Half the reports were so optimistic that it was clear the writers were either lying or delusional, the remainder were so pessimistic that it was difficult to tell just who was writing them.  The paperwork that has sustained the empire was starting to collapse, more and more people writing lies into the official record ... Piling wasn’t naive. She knew the empire lied to its subjects.  But it couldn’t afford to start lying to itself ...

An alarm rang.  She jerked her head up, just in time to see a red icon materialise in the gravity point.  The mines started gliding towards it, too late.  The icon flashed, transforming into an expanding sphere as the antimatter warhead detonated.  More and more flooded the gravity point, each explosion wiping out hundreds of mines.  The humans were clearing the gravity point by brute force, not even bothering to send recon probes or actual starships through the gap as they worked.  She cursed savagely as her crews rushed to battle stations, bringing their weapons and sensors online.  They just didn’t have the time to do more than make a brief stand.

The surging energies seemed to still, just for a moment.  Piling allowed herself a second of hope, even though she knew it was futile.  Hundreds of thousands of mines had been wiped out, along with a pair of freighters that had been too close to the gravity point.  She didn’t have time to mourn their loss.  More red icons were already appearing, human-made assault pods.  She wondered, savagely, why her people had never thought of building jump-capable missile pods.  The humans were insane!  Their fantasists seemed to have spent years dreaming up ideas and tactics for weapons they hadn’t possessed, weapons they would never have been able to build without help.  And it had given them an edge.

“Order Force One to fire at will,” she said.  “Force Two is to remain in place ...”

She felt her stomach churn as the assault pods opened fire, launching a wave of missiles in all directions.  They were quick, damn it.  Their targeting data had to be almost non-existent, yet - even as they moved - they were picking up targets and moving to attack.  She traced the vectors as some of her freighters opened fire, trying to get their missiles off before they were blown out of space.  It was unlikely they’d hit anything important.  The humans were fighting smart, wearing down her defences before committing their warships to the engagement.  She thought dark thoughts about the industrial might of N-Gann, a system that might as well be on the other side of the galaxy for all the good it would do her.  The humans had probably put the giant fabricators to work, churning out hundreds of missiles and antimatter pods.  They could just keep firing blind until her defences had been reduced to dust.

A new red icon appeared in the display.  She ground her teeth in frustration as her sensors picked out the human destroyer.  It was targeted instantly, a wave of missiles roaring towards it ... her crews had done everything right, but it was still too late.  The destroyer vanished, jumping back through the gravity point.  Piling snapped orders, directing her uncloaked ships to alter position as quickly as possible.  It wouldn’t be long before the next wave of assault pods materialised ... she didn’t even have time to finish the thought.  The assault pods jumped through the gravity point, a handful intersecting and wiping themselves out of existence.  The remainder opened fire as one.

That was quick, she thought.  She’d heard rumours that the humans had made breakthroughs in computer technology, perhaps even produced a working AI, but she hadn’t believed it.  AIs were dangerous.  Everyone knew it.  But if the humans had made a breakthrough ... she swallowed, hard.  They had to have found some way of collecting data and turning it into targeting information at terrifying speed.  AIs or no AIs, they’d done it.  Somehow.  We might be in some trouble.

She tried to ignore the unpleasant feeling in her chest as her defences shattered, the remaining visible ships either falling back or being ruthlessly blown out of space.  A couple dropped their shields and tried to surrender, something that would have been unthinkable two years ago, but the humans ignored them.  She couldn’t tell if the automated systems were incapable of recognising a surrender or if the humans simply wanted to commit a war crime.  A handful of human ships materialised on the gravity point, bringing up their sensors and weapons with terrifying speed.  This time, they took no fire.  None of the forward defences had lasted long enough to greet them.

But they don’t know about Force Two, she reminded herself, as the human ships started to move away from the gravity point.  They don’t know we’re lying in wait.

Her hands moved over her console as the display continued to update.  A steady stream of human warships began to appear, deploying so quickly that there was a serious risk of one ship interpenetrating another and destroying both ships.  She hoped a few of them would, if only to convince the humans to slow down.  She’d seen the reports, heard the horror stories passed down from a dozen battles, but she hadn’t actually believed them.  No Galactic race would ever take the risk.  But the humans were barbarians.  They took risks with their lives that no sane race would ever take.  They seemed to consider themselves expendable.

The deployment continued, slowly but surely.  A handful of ships dropped into FTL, rocketing towards the other gravity point or the planet itself; the remainder stayed near the first gravity point, watching and waiting as the assault force grew stronger.  Piling forced herself to wait, knowing it was only a matter of time before the humans made their bid to seize the next gravity point.  The planets were immaterial, as far as she was concerned.  If the humans managed to take the gravity point, they could cut the entire system off from the rest of the empire and block all hope of reinforcement.  And then ... her lips thinned as she saw hundreds of freighters, the ones she hadn’t managed to press into service, streaking away from the planet.  Their commanders could read a tactical display as well as herself.  They knew it was just a matter of time before they were locked out of the gravity point.  They had to get through before it was too late or they’d face so many penalties they’d probably lose their licences to command starships.

And the combines won’t give a damn, she thought.  Don’t they know there’s a war on?

She leaned forward as the human ships started to move, powerful squadrons heading towards the other gravity point.  They were taking their time, she noted; they could have moved a great deal faster if they wished.  She frowned, wondering if it was some kind of trap.  The humans didn’t know she was waiting for them, did they?  Or ... she smiled, grimly, as she understood what she was seeing.  The humans wanted the freighters to run.  They wanted them to spread the word.  They wanted the entire galaxy to see the Tokomak lose yet another system.  And word would spread ...

Piling reached for her console to issue orders, then shook her head.  There was no hope of closing the gravity point, not in time to matter.  The freighters would carry news of defeat ... she hoped they’d carry news of a valiant last stand too.  The humans were good, but they weren’t gods.  They’d be buried in starships and missiles, once the reserve fleets were online and the fabrication nodes were up to speed.  And her battle here, as tiny as it was by the standards of previous engagements, would buy time.  It was worth it.  

She tapped a switch.  “Prepare to engage,” she ordered.  Her ships had their drives and shields stepped down as much as possible.  Thankfully, the human ships weren’t trying to hide.  The engagement would have become impossible if both sides were relying on passive sensors.  “Fire when they reach the planned waypoint, unless they scan us first.  If they do, fire at once.”

Her heart started to race as the human ships drew closer.  She’d planned the engagement carefully, running through hundreds of simulations, but it was all too clear the humans had never read the tactical manuals.  Or, if they had, they hadn’t paid any attention.  Their tactics alone were crazy, by pre-war standards.  Now ... Piling had the odd feeling an era was dying, even if the war was won without further ado.  She’d heard her junior officers openly discussing new tactics, as if they no longer trusted what they read in the manuals.  They’d never get promotion with attitudes like that ... no, once they would never have got promotion with those attitudes.  Now, Piling wasn’t so sure.  The empress had thought outside the box.  It was why she was empress.

And if I’d had that sort of imagination, she told herself, perhaps I would be empress.

She snorted and put the thought out of her head.  She didn’t have that sort of imagination.  She’d never had the nerve - or the need - to think outside the box.  And that was all there was to it.  She would never have thought to launch a coup.  She would certainly never have considered that a coup might succeed ... the thought had been laughable.  

She was sure no one was laughing now.

“Prepare to engage,” she repeated.  She knew she was nervous.  She couldn’t help herself.  Whatever happened, she wasn’t going to survive.  She was old and yet she felt unready to die.  A year or so ago, death would have been unthinkable.  A year or so ago, the war itself would have been unthinkable.  Who would have thought there was anything that could stand against the masters of the universe?  “Prepare to ...”

The display washed red.  The human ships seemed to jump.  Piling knew it was her imagination, but she clung to it anyway.  She’d hoped the enemy would obligingly crawl into point-blank range before noticing her ships, yet ... she’d given them a fright.  And her ships were close enough to launch their missiles in sprint mode.  The humans would have to either stand on the defensive or flee into FTL and they didn’t have time to do either.  She smiled, coldly, as the first missiles launched from her ships, their drives powering up in a desperate bid to generate gravity wells.  It might just keep the humans from fleeing when they realised they’d walked into a trap.

She leaned forward as the human ships started to return fire.  The cloaking devices had been rendered useless the moment her ships had launched their missiles, of course.  The humans would have to be blind not to see where the missiles were coming from, blind and stupid to miss the obvious fact that there were invisible ships lurking under cloak.  But their targeting was disturbingly accurate, accurate enough to make her wonder if they’d known she was there all along ... she shook her head.  They really weren’t gods.  If they’d known she was there, they would have opened fire while her ships were defenceless.  She might not even have known what had hit her before it was too late.

Icons - human icons - flickered as her missiles started to explode.  Their shields were tough - it was disconcerting to realise that a human cruiser had better shields than one of her battleships - but they weren’t designed to take such a pounding.  A vindictive sense of cold glee washed through her as a human cruiser vanished, followed rapidly by a pair of destroyers and a ship of indeterminate class.  The losses were going to be uneven, in both senses of the word.  She might lose her entire squadron, but the humans - proportionally - would suffer worse.  The explosions pockmarking her ships would represent a net loss to the human fleet even if they killed her entire squadron.

Her ships brought up their drives and plunged forward, trying to narrow the range as much as possible.  Piling had put her biggest ships in the vanguard, trying to ensure that they drew fire so her smaller ships could get into range.  The humans seemed to be wise to the trick, but they could hardly ignore millions of tons of battleship trying to get into energy range.  A low shudder ran though the CIC as her flagship took a hit, alerts flashing up to warn her the humans were using antimatter warheads.  Piling wasn’t surprised, but she was disconcerted.  The humans - somehow - had managed to get a bigger than expected yield ...

They must have found a way to compress antimatter safely, she thought, as she glanced at the sensor reports.  It was hard to be sure - the antimatter blasts were disrupting everything - but the human missiles didn’t look any larger than her own.  And yet, compressed antimatter was very dangerous.  It would be a hellish risk, whatever advantages it offered its users.  Perhaps they’d found a way to produce miniature drives.  It was theoretically possible, if one didn’t mind the radiation surge.  They’re quite happy to take risks if it gives them the edge.

Another impact shook her ship as the range closed rapidly.  The humans were blasting away with phasers and other energy weapons now, burning through her shields and cutting into her hulls.  Her ships were doing the same, her smaller ships deliberately trying to ram the bigger enemy warships.  Their losses would sting, but ... Piling told herself, again and again, that her people would come out ahead.  They could afford to take losses.  Their human enemies could not.  She smiled, coldly.  She wouldn’t be promoted - she wouldn’t survive long enough - but she’d be remembered.  She just hoped it was enough for her family.  They would suffer if she was remembered poorly.

A human starship - a cruiser, she thought - exploded as her energy weapons tore through its hull.  She noted a handful of lifepods, a couple mistaken for mines and picked off as the remains of her formation careened through the human ships.  Her ship shook again and again, her crew fighting desperately to keep the damage under control a few minutes longer.  And yet, the damage was mounting up rapidly.  She cursed as a console exploded, something that only happened when the damage was beyond control.  Power surges within the vessel’s control systems meant certain destruction.  Her time was up ...

They’ll remember me, she thought, vindictively.  The display blanked as the ship shook again and again.  She wanted to run to the nearest lifepod, but she knew it was already too late.  They’d been on a collision course before the drives had failed ... she hoped they’d maintain enough speed to hit their target.  They’ll remember me ...

And then the world went away in a flash of blinding light.